Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up (The Uniform Edition Plays of J. M. Barrie)

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https://archive.org/details/peterpanorboywho0000unse_f2e9

THE UNIFORM EDITION OF

THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE

PETER PAN

OR

THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT
GROW UP

THE WORKS OF J. M. BARRIE.

NOVELS, STORIES, PLAYS, AND
SKETCHES.

Uniform Edition.

AULD LICHT IDYLLS, BETTER DEAD.

WHEN A MAN’S SINGLE.

A WINDOW IN THRUMS, AN EDINBURGH
ELEVEN.

THE LITTLE MINISTER.

SENTIMENTAL TOMMY.

MY LADY NICOTINE, MARGARET OGILVY.

TOMMY AND GRIZEL.

THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD.

PETER AND WENDY.

Also

HALF HOURS, DER TAG.
ECHOES OF THE WAR.

PLAYS.
Uniform Edition.

PETER PAN.
MARY ROSE.
DEAR BRUTUS.
A KISS FOR CINDERELLA.
ALICE SIT-BY-THE-FIRE.
WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS.
QUALITY STREET.
THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON.
ECHOES OF THE WAR.

Containing : The Old Lady Shows Her Medals
—The New Word—Barbara’s Wedding—A
Well-Remembered Voice.

HALF HOURS.

Containing: Pantaloon—The Twelve-Pound

Look—Rosalind—The Will

Others in Preparation.
INDIVIDUAL EDITIONS.
COURAGE.
PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.
Illustrated by ARTHUR RACKHAM.
PETER AND WENDY.
Illustrated by F. D. BEpForD.
PETER PAN AND WENDY.
Illustrated by Miss ATTWELL.
TOMMY AND GRIZEL.
Illustrated by BERNARD PARTRIDGE.
MARGARET OGILVY.

«*» For particulars Conteng The Thistle
Edition of the Works of J. M. Barrie, sold only
by subscription, send for circular.

NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

THE PLAYS OF
J. M. BARRIE

PETER PAN

OR

THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT
.GROW..UP .....

NEW YORK :: : : : : : : 1928

ry
CHARLES ERIBNER'S SONS

CorrricuT, 1928, By
J. M. BARRIE

Printed in the United States of America

All rights, resg/ved, under ‘the: }itterriquional Copyright Act.
Performtnct, fordiddén’, and Fight of eepreseniation reserved.
A pblication «for. the right® of performing this play must be

yle.to; Charles Frohman, Inc., Empire Theatre, New York.

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TO THE FIVE

A DEDICATION

Some disquieting confessions must be made in
printing at last the play of Peter Pan; among
them this, that I have no recollection of having
written it. Of that, however, anon. What I
want to do first is to give Peter to the Five
without whom he never would have existed. I
hope, my dear sirs, that in memory of what
we have been to each other you will accept this
dedication with your friend’s love. The play of
Peter is streaky with you still, though none may
see this save ourselves. A score of Acts had to
be left out, and you were in them all. We first
brought Peter down, didn’t we, with a blunt-
headed arrow in Kensington Gardens? I seem
to remember that we believed we had killed him,
though he was only winded, and that after a
spasm of exultation in our prowess the more
soft-hearted among us wept and all of us thought

vi PETER PAN

of the police. There was not one of you who
would not have sworn as an eye-witness to
this occurence; no doubt I was abetting, but
you used to provide corroboration that was
never given to you by me. As for myself, I
suppose I always knew that I made Peter by
rubbing the five of you violently together, as
savages with two sticks produce a flame. That
is all he is, the spark I got from you.

We had good sport of him before we clipped
him small to make him fit the boards. Some of
you were not born when the story began and yet
were hefty figures before we saw that the game
was up. Do you remember a garden at Burpham
and the initiation there of No. 4 when he was six
weeks old, and three of you grudged letting him
in so young? Have you, No. 3, forgotten the
white violets at the Cistercian abbey in which
we cassocked our first fairies (all little friends of
St. Benedict), or your cry to the Gods, ‘Do I just
kill one pirate all the time?? Do you remember
Marooners’ Hut in the haunted groves of
Waverley, and the St. Bernard dog in a tiger’s
mask who so frequently attacked you, and the

A DEDICATION vil

literary record of that summer, The Boy Cast-
aways, which is so much the best and the rarest
of this author’s works? What was it that made
us eventually give to the public in the thin form
of a play that which had been woven for our-
selves alone? Alas, I know what it was, I was
losing my grip. One by one as you swung
monkey-wise from branch to branch in the wood
of make-believe you reached the tree of know-
ledge. Sometimes you swung back into the
wood, as the unthinking may at a cross-road take
a familiar path that no longer leads to home;
or you perched ostentatiously on its boughs to
please me, pretending that you still belonged;
soon you knew it only as the vanished wood, for
it vanishes if one needs to look for it. A time
came when I saw that No. 1, the most gallant of
you all, ceased to believe that he was ploughing
woods incarnadine, and with an apologetic eye
for me derided the lingering faith of No. 2;
when even No. 3 questioned gloomily whether he
did not really spend his nights in bed. ‘There
were still two who knew no better, but their day

was dawning. In these circumstances, I suppose,

A

Vili PETER PAN

was begun the writing of the play of Peter.
That was a quarter of a century ago, and I
clutch my brows in vain to remember whether it
was a last desperate throw to retain the five of
you for a little longer, or merely a cold decision
to turn you into bread and butter.

This brings us back to my uncomfortable
admission that I have no recollection of writing
the play of Peter Pan, now being published for
the first time so long after he made his bow upon
the stage. You had played it until you tired of
it, and tossed it in the air and gored it and left it
derelict in the mud and went on your way sing-
ing other songs; and then I stole back and
sewed some of the gory fragments together with
a pen-nib. That is what must have happened,
but I cannot remember doing it. I remember
writing the story of Peter and Wendy many years
after the production of the play, but I might
have cribbed that from some typed copy. I can
haul back to mind the writing of almost every
other essay of mine, however forgotten by the
pretty public; but this play of Peter, no. Even
my beginning as an amateur playwright, that

A DEDICATION 1x

noble mouthful, Bandelero the Bandit, I re-
member every detail of its composition in my
school days at Dumfries. Not less vivid is my
first little piece, produced by Mr. Toole. It was
called Ibsen’s Ghost, and was a parody of the
mightiest craftsman that ever wrote for our
kind friends in front. To save the management
the cost of typing I wrote out the ‘parts,’
after being told what parts were, and I can
still recall my first words, spoken so plaintively
by a now famous actress,—“To run away
from my second husband just as I ran away
from my first, it feels quite like old times.’
On the first night a man in the pit found
Ibsen’s Ghost so diverting that he had to
be removed in hysterics. After that no one
seems to have thought of it at all. But what
a man to carry about with one! How odd,
too, that these trifles should adhere to the
mind that cannot remember the long job of
writing Peter. It does seem almost suspicious,
especially as I have not the original MS. of
Peter Pan (except a few stray pages), with which
to support my claim. I have indeed another

x PETER PAN

MS., lately made, but that ‘proves nothing.’
I know not whether I lost that original MS. or
destroyed it or happily gave it away. I talk of
dedicating the play to you, but how can I prove
it is mine? How ought I to act if some other
hand, who could also have made a copy, thinks
it worth while to contest the cold rights? Cold
they are to me now as that laughter of yours
in which Peter came into being long before
he was caught and written down. There is
Peter still, but to me he les sunk in the gay
Black Lake.

Any one of you five brothers has a better claim
to the authorship than most, and I would not
fight you for it, but you should have launched
your case long ago in the days when you most
admired me, which were in the first year of the
play, owing to a rumour’s reaching you that my
spoils were one-and-sixpence a night. This was
untrue, but it did give me a standing among you.
You watched for my next play with peeled eyes,
not for entertainment but lest it contained some
chance witticism of yours that could be chal-

lenged as collaboration; indeed I believe there

A DEDICATION Xi

still exists a legal document, full of the Aforesaid
and Henceforward to be called Part-Author, in
which for some such snatching I was tied down
to pay No. 2 one halfpenny daily throughout
the run of the piece.

During the rehearsals of Peter (and it is’
evidence in my favour that I was admitted to
them) a depressed man in overalls, carrying a
mug of tea or a paint-pot, used often to appear
by my side in the shadowy stalls and say to me,
‘The gallery boys won’t stand it. He then
mysteriously faded away as if he were the theatre
ghost. This hopelessness of his is what all
dramatists are said to feel at such times, so
perhaps he was the author. Again, a large
number of children whom I have seen playing
Peter in their homes with careless mastership,
constantly putting in better words, could have
thrown it off with ease. It was for such as they
that after the first production I had to add some-
thing to the play at the request of parents (who
thus showed that they thought me the re-
sponsible person) about no one being able to
fly until the fairy dust had been blown on

Xi PETER PAN

him; so many children having gone home and
tried it from their beds and needed surgical
attention.

Notwithstanding other possibilities, I think
I wrote Peter, and if so it must have been in the
usual inky way. Some of it, I like to think, was
done in that native place which is the dearest
spot on earth to me, though my last heart-beats
shall be with my beloved solitary London that
was so hard to reach. I must have sat at a
table with that great dog waiting for me to stop,
not complaining, for he knew it was thus we
made our living, but giving me a look when he
found he was to be in the play, with his sex
changed. In after years when the actor who
was Nana had to go to the wars he first taught
his wife how to take his place as the dog till he
came back, and I am glad that I see nothing
funny in this; it seems to me to belong to the
play. I offer this obtuseness on my part as my
first proof that I am the author.

Some say that we are different people at dif-
ferent periods of our lives, changing not through
effort of will, which is a brave affair, but in the

A DEDICATION xii

easy course of nature every ten years or so. I
suppose this theory might explain my present
trouble, but I don’t hold with it; I think one
remains the same person throughout, merely
passing, as it were, in these lapses of time from
one room to another, but all in the same house.
If we unlock the rooms of the far past we can
peer in and see ourselves, busily occupied in
beginning to become you and me. Thus, if I
am the author in question the way he is to go
should already be showing in the occupant of my
first compartment, at whom I now take the
liberty to peep. Here he is at the age of seven
or so with his fellow-conspirator Robb, both
in glengarry bonnets. They are giving an
entertainment in a tiny old washing-house that
still stands. The charge for admission is preens,
a bool, or a peerie (I taught you a good deal
of Scotch, so possibly you can follow that), and
apparently the culminating Act consists in our
trying to put each other into the boiler, though
some say that I also addressed the spell-bound
audience. This washing-house is not only the
theatre of my first play, but has a still closer

XIV PETER PAN

connection with Peter. It is the original of the
little house the Lost Boys built in the Never
Land for Wendy, the chief difference being that
it never wore John’s hat as a chimney. If
Robb had owned such a hat I have no doubt
that it would have been placed on the washing-
house.

Here is that boy again some four years older,
and the reading he is munching feverishly is
about desert islands; he calls them wrecked
islands. He buys his sanguinary tales surrep-
titiously in penny numbers. I see a change
coming over him; he is blanching as he reads in
the high-class magazine, Chatterbox, a fulmina-
tion against such literature, and sees that unless
his greed for islands is quenched he is for ever
lost. With gloaming he steals out of the house,
his hbrary bulging beneath his palpitating waist-
coat. I follow like his shadow, as indeed I am,
and watch him dig a hole in a field at Pathhead
farm and bury his islands in it; it was ages ago,
but I could walk straight to that hole in the field
now and delve for the remains. I peep into the

next compartment. There he is again, ten

A DEDICATION XV

years older, an undergraduate now and craving
to be a real explorer, one of those who do things
instead of prating of them, but otherwise un-
altered; he might be painted at twenty on top
of a mast, in his hand a spy-glass through which
he rakes the horizon for an elusive strand. I
go from room to room, and he is now a man,
real exploration abandoned (though only because
nc one would have him). Soon he is even con-
cocting other plays, and quaking a little lest
some low person counts how many islands there
are in them. I note that with the years the
islands grow more sinister, but it is only because
he has now to write with the left hand, the right
having given out; evidently one thinks more
darkly down the left arm. Go to the keyhole
of the compartment where he and I join up, and
you may see us wondering whether they would
stand one more island. This journey through
the house may not convince any one that I wrote
Peter, but it does suggest me as a likely person.
I pause to ask myself whether I read Chatterbox
again, suffered the old agony, and buried that
MS. of the play in a hole in a field.

XV1 PETER PAN

Of course this is over-charged. Perhaps we
do change; except a little something in us
which is no larger than a mote in the eye, and
that, like it, dances in front of us beguiling us
all our days. I cannot cut the hair by which
it hangs.

The strongest evidence that I am_ the
author is to be found, I think, in a now
melancholy volume, the aforementioned The
Boy Castaways; so you must excuse me for
parading that work here. Officer of the Court,
call The Boy Castaways. The witness steps
forward and proves to be a book you re-
member well though you have not glanced at it
these many years. I pulled it out of a bookcase
just now not without difficulty, for its recent
occupation has been to support the shelf above.
I suppose, though I am uncertain, that it was I
and not you who hammered it into that place of
utility. It is a little battered and bent after
the manner of those who shoulder burdens, and
ought. (to our shame) to remind us of the wit-
nesses who sometimes get an hour off from the
cells to give evidence before his Lordship. I

A DEDICATION XVii

have said that it is the rarest of my printed
works, as it must be, for the only edition was
limited to two copies, of which one (there was
always some devilry in any matter connected
with Peter) instantly lost itself in railway
carriage. This is the survivor. The idlers in
court may have assumed that it is a handwritten
screed, and are impressed by its bulk. It is
printed by Constable’s (how handsomely you
did us, dear Blaikie), it contains thirty-five
illustrations and is bound in cloth with a picture
stamped on the cover of the three eldest of
you ‘setting out to be wrecked.’ This record is
supposed to be edited by the youngest of the
three, and I must have granted him that
honour to make up for his being so often lifted
bodily out of our adventures by his nurse, who
kept breaking into them for the fell purpose of
giving him a midday rest. No. 4 rested so
much at this period that he was merely an
honorary member of the band, waving his foot
to you for luck when you set off with bow and
arrow to shoot his dinner for him; and one

may rummage the book in vain for any trace

xviii PETER PAN

of No. 5. Here is the title-page, except that you

are numbered instead of named—

THE BOY
CASTAWAYS
OF BLACK LAKE ISLAND

Being a record of the Terrible
Adventures of Three Brothers
in the summer of 1901
faithfully set forth
by No. 3.

LONDON
Published by J. M. Barrie
in the Gloucester Road
1901

There is a long preface by No. 3 in which we
gather your ages at this first flight. ‘No. 1 was
eight and a month, No. 2 was approaching his
seventh lustrum, and I was a good bit past four.’
Of his two elders, while commending their fear-
less dispositions, the editor complains that they

A DEDICATION xix

wanted to do all the shooting and carried the
whole equipment of arrows inside their shirts.
He is attractively modest about himself, ‘Of
No. 3 I prefer to say nothing, hoping that the
tale as it is unwound will show that he was a boy
of deeds rather than of words,’ a quality which
he hints did not unduly protrude upon the brows
of Nos. 1 and 2. His preface ends on a high
note, ‘I should say that the work was in the
first instance compiled as a record simply at
which we could whet our memories, and that it
is now published for No. 4’s benefit. If it
teaches him by example lessons in fortitude and
manly endurance we shall consider that we were
not wrecked in vain.’

Published to whet your memories. Does
it whet them? Do you hear once more, like
some long-forgotten whistle beneath your
window (Robb at dawn calling me to the fish-
ing!) the not quite mortal blows that still echo
in some of the chapter headings?—‘Chapter II,
No. 1 teaches Wilkinson (his master) a Stern
Lesson—We Run away to Sea. Chapter III, A
Fearful Hurricane—Wreck of the “Anna Pink”

<x PETER PAN

—We go crazy from Want of Food—Proposal to
eat No. 3—Land Ahoy.’ Such are two chapters
out of sixteen. Are these again your javelins
cutting tunes in the blue haze of the pines; do
you sweat as you scale the dreadful Valley
of Rolling Stones, and cleanse your hands
of pirate blood by scouring them carelessly in
Mother Earth? Can you still make a fire (you
could do it once, Mr. Seton-Thompson taught
us in, surely an odd place, the Reform Club) by
rubbing those sticks together? Was it the
travail of hut-building that subsequently advised
Peter to find a ‘home under the ground’? The
bottle and mugs in that lurid picture, ‘Last
night on the Island,’ seem to suggest that you
had changed from Lost Boys into pirates,
which was probably also a tendency of Peter’s.
Listen again to our stolen saw-mill, man’s
proudest invention; when he made the saw-
mill he beat the birds for music in a wood.

The illustrations (full-paged) in The Boy
Castaways are all photographs taken by myself ;
some of them indeed of phenomena that had to

be invented afterwards, for you were always off

A DEDICATION Xx

doing the wrong things when I pressed the
button. I see that we combined instruction
with amusement; perhaps we had given our
kingly word to that effect. How otherwise
account for such wording to the pictures as
these: ‘It is undoubtedly,’ says No. 1 in a fir
tree that is bearing unwonted fruit, recently tied
to it, ‘the Cocos nucifera, for observe the slender
columns supporting the crown of leaves which
fall with a grace that no art can imitate.’
‘Truly,’ continues No. 1 under the same tree in
another forest as he leans upon his trusty gun,
‘though the perils of these happenings are
great, yet would I rejoice to endure still greater
privations to be thus rewarded by such wondrous
studies of Nature.’ He is soon back to the
practical, however, ‘recognising the Mango
(Magnifera indica) by its lancet-shaped leaves
and the cucumber-shaped fruit.’ No. 1 was
certainly the right sort of voyager to be wrecked
with, though if my memory fails me not, No. 2,
to whom these strutting observations were
addressed, sometimes protested because none
of them was given to him. No. 8 being the

XX PETER PAN

author is in surprisingly few of the pictures, but
this, you may remember, was because the lady
already darkly referred to used to pluck him
from our midst for his siesta at 12 o’clock, which
was the hour that best suited the camera. With
a skill on which he has never been complimented
the photographer sometimes got No. 3 nominally
included in a wild-life picture when he was
really in a humdrum house kicking on the sofa.
Thus in a scene representing Nos. 1 and 2 sitting
scowling outside the hut it is untruly written
that they scowled because ‘their brother was
within singing and playing on a barbaric instru-
ment. The music,’ the unseen No. 3 is repre-
sented as saying (obviously forestalling No. 1),
‘is rude and to a cultured ear discordant, but
the songs like those of the Arabs are full of
poetic imagery.’ He was perhaps allowed to say
this sulkily on the sofa.

Though The Boy Castaways has sixteen
chapter-headings, there is no other letterpress;
an absence which possible purchasers might
complain of, though there are surely worse ways

of writing a book than this. These headings

A DEDICATION Xxil

anticipate much of the play of Peter Pan, but
there were many incidents of our Kensington
Gardens days that never get into the book, such
as our Antarctic exploits when we reached the
Pole in advance of our friend Captain Scott and
cut our initials on it for him to find, a strange
foreshadowing of what was really to happen.
In The Boy Castaways Captain Hook has arrived
but is called Captain Swarthy, and he seems from
the pictures to have been a black man. This
character, as you do not need to be told, is held
by those in the know to be autobiographical.
You had many tussels with him (though you
never, I think, got his right arm) before you
reached the terrible chapter (which might be
taken from the play) entitled ‘We Board the
Pirate Ship at Dawn—A Rakish Craft—No. 1
Hew-them-Down and No. 2 of the Red Hatchet
—A Holocaust of Pirates—Rescue of Peter.’
(Hullo, Peter rescued instead of rescuing others?
I know what that means and so do you, but we
are not going to give away all our secrets.)
The scene of the Holocaust is the Black Lake

(afterwards, when we let women in, the Mermaids’

XXIV PETER PAN

Lagoon). The pirate captain’s end was not in
the mouth of a crocodile though we had crocodiles
on the spot (‘while No. 2 was removing the
crocodiles from the stream No. 1 shot a few
parrots, Psittacidae, for our evening meal’). I
think our captain had divers deaths owing to
unseemly competition among you, each want-
ing to slay him single-handed. On a special
occasion, such as when No. 3 pulled out the tooth
himself, you gave the deed to him, but took
it from him while he rested. The only pictorial
representation in the book of Swarthy’s fate is
in two parts. In one, called briefly ‘We string
him up,’ Nos. 1 and 2, stern as Athos, are haul-
ing him up a tree by a rope, his face snarling as
if it were a grinning mask (which indeed it was),
and his garments very like some of my own
stuffed with bracken. The other, the same
scene next day, is called ‘The Vultures had
Picked him Clean,’ and tells its own tale.

The dog in The Boy Castaways seems never to
have been called Nana but was evidently in
training for that post. He originally belonged
to Swarthy (or to Captain Marryat?), and the

A DEDICATION XXV

first picture of him, lean, skulking, and hunched
(how did I get that effect?), ‘patrolling the
island’ in that monster’s interests, gives little
indication of the domestic paragon he was to
become. We lured him away to the better life,
and there is, later, a touching picture, a clear
forecast of the Darling nursery, entitled ‘We
trained the dog to watch over us while we slept.’
In this he also is sleeping, in a position that is a
careful copy of his charges; indeed any trouble
we had with him was because, once he knew he
was in a story, he thought his safest course was
to imitate you in everything you did. How
anxious he was to show that he understood the
game, and more generous than you, he never
pretended that he was the one who killed
Captain Swarthy. I must not imply that he
was entirely without initiative, for it was his own
idea to bark warningly a minute or two before
twelve o’clock as a signal to No. 3 that his
keeper was probably on her way for him (Dis-
appearance of No. 3); and he became so used
to living in the world of Pretend that when we
reached the hut of a morning he was often there

XXvl PETER PAN

waiting for us, looking, it is true, rather idiotic,
but with a new bark he had invented which
puzzled us until we decided that he was demand-
ing the password. He was always willing to
do any extra jobs, such as becoming the tiger
in mask, and when after a fierce engagement
you carried home that mask in triumph, he
joined in the procession proudly and never let
on that the trophy had ever been part of him.
Long afterwards he saw the play from a box in
the theatre, and as familiar scenes were unrolled
before his eyes I have never seen a dog so
bothered. At one matinee we even let him for
a moment take the place of the actor who played
Nana, and I don’t know that any members of
the audience ever noticed the change, though
he introduced some ‘business’ that was new
to them but old to you and me. Heigh-ho, I
suspect that in this reminiscence I am mixing
him up with his successor, for such a one there
had to be, the loyal Newfoundland who, perhaps
in the following year, applied, so to say, for the
part by bringing hedgehogs to the hut in his

mouth as offerings for our evening repasts.

A DEDICATION XXVll

The head and coat of him were copied for the
Nana of the play.

They do seem to be emerging out of our
island, don’t they, the little people of the play,
all except that sly one, the chief figure, who
draws farther and farther into the wood as we
advance upon him? He so dislikes being
tracked, as if there were something odd about
him, that when he dies he means to get up and
blow away the particle that will be his ashes.

Wendy has not yet appeared, but she has been
trying to come ever since that loyal nurse cast
the humorous shadow of woman upon the scene
and made us feel that it might be fun to let in
a disturbing element. Perhaps she would have
bored her way in at last whether we wanted her
or not. It may be that even Peter did not
really bring her to the Never Land of his free
will, but merely pretended to do so because she
would not stay away. Even Tinker Bell had
reached our island before we left it. It was one
evening when we climbed the wood carrying
No. 4 to show him what the trail was like by
twilight. As our lanterns twinkled among the

XXVill PETER PAN

leaves No. 4 saw a twinkle stand still for a
moment and he waved his foot gaily to it, thus
creating Tink. It must not be thought, how-
ever, that there were any other sentimental
passages between No. 4 and Tink; indeed, as
he got to know her better he suspected her of
frequenting the hut to see what we had been
having for supper, and to partake of the same,
and he pursued her with malignancy.

A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling
the past is to force open a crammed drawer. If
you are searching for anything in particular
you don’t find it, but something falls out at the
back that is often more interesting. It is in this
way that I get my desultory reading, which
includes the few stray leaves of the original MS.
of Peter that I have said I do possess, though
even they, when returned to the drawer, are
gone again, as if that touch of devilry lurked in
them still. They show that in early days I
hacked at and added to the play. In the drawer
I find some scraps of Mr. Crook’s delightful music,
and other incomplete matter relating to Peter.
Here is the reply of a boy whom I favoured with

A DEDICATION XX1X

a seat in my box and injudiciously asked at the
end what he had liked best. ‘What I think
I liked best,’ he said, ‘was tearing up the
programme and dropping the bits on people’s
heads.” Thus am I often laid low. A copy
of my favourite programme of the play is still
in the drawer. In the first or second year of
Peter No. 4 could not attend through illness, so
we took the play to his nursery, far away in the
country, an array of vehicles almost as glorious
as a travelling circus; the leading parts were
played by the youngest children in the London
company, and No. 4, aged five, looked on
solemnly at the performance from his bed and
never smiled once. That was my first and only
appearance on the real stage, and this copy of
the programme shows I was thought so meanly
of as an actor that they printed my name in
smaller letters than the others.

I have said little here of Nos. 4 and 5, and it
is high time I had finished. They had a long
summer day, and I turn round twice and now
they are off to school. On Monday, as it
seems, I was escorting No. 5 to a children’s

Xxx PETER PAN

party and brushing his hair in the ante-room;
and by Thursday he is placing me against the
wall of an underground station and saying,
‘Now I am going to get the tickets; don’t
move till I come back for you or you'll lose
yourself.” No. 4 jumps from being astride my
shoulders fishing, I knee-deep in the stream, to
becoming, while still a schoolboy, the sternest
of my literary critics. Anything he shook his
head over I abandoned, and conceivably the
world has thus been deprived of masterpieces.
There was for instance an unfortunate little
tragedy which I liked until I foolishly told
No. 4 its subject, when he frowned and said he
had better have a look at it. He read it, and
then, patting me on the back, as only he and
No. 1 could touch me, said, ‘You know you

can’t do this sort of thing.’

End of a tragedian.
Sometimes, however, No. 4 liked my efforts,
and I walked in the azure that day when he
returned Dear Brutus to me with the comment
‘Not so bad.’ In earlier days, when he was ten,
I offered him the MS. of my book Margaret

Ogilvy. ‘Oh, thanks,’ he said almost immediately,

A DEDICATION XXX

and added, ‘Of course my desk is awfully full.’
I reminded him that he could take out some of its
more ridiculous contents. He said, ‘I have read
it already in the book.’ This I had not known,
and I was secretly elated, but I said that people
sometimes liked to preserve this kind of thing
as a curiosity. He said ‘Oh’ again. I said
tartly that he was not compelled to take it if he
didn’t want it. He said, ‘Of course I want it,
but my desk > Then he wriggled out of the

room and came back in a few minutes dragging

in No. 5 and announcing triumphantly, ‘No. 5
will have it.’

The rebuffs I have got from all of you!
They were especially crushing in those early
days when one by one you came out of your
belief in fairies and lowered on me as the de-
ceiver. My grandest triumph, the best thing
in the play of Peter Pan (though it is not in
it), is that long after No. 4 had ceased to
believe, I brought him back to the faith for
at least two minutes. We were on our way
in a boat to fish the Outer Hebrides (where
we caught Mary Rose), and though it was a

XXXll PETER PAN

journey of days he wore his fishing basket on his
back all the time, so as to be able to begin at
once. His one pain was the absence of J ohnny
Mackay, for Johnny was the loved gillie of the
previous summer who had taught him every-
thing that is worth knowing (which is a matter
of flies) but could not be with us this time as he
would have had to cross and re-cross Scotland
to reach us. As the boat drew near the Kyle
of Lochalsh pier I told Nos. 4 and 5 it was such
a famous wishing pier that they had now but
to wish and they should have. No. 5 believed
at once and expressed a wish to meet himself
(I afterwards found him on the pier searching
faces confidently), but No. 4 thought it more of
my untimely nonsense and doggedly declined to
humour me. ‘Whom do you want to see most,
No. 4?? ‘Of course I would like most to
see Johnny Mackay.’ ‘Well, then, wish for
him.’ ‘Oh, rot.’ ‘It can’t do any harm to wish.’
Contemptuously he wished, and as the ropes
were thrown on the pier he saw Johnny waiting
for him, loaded with angling paraphernalia. I
know no one less like a fairy than Johnny

A DEDICATION XXXili

Mackay, but for two minutes No. 4 was quivering
in another world than ours. When he came to he
gave me a smile which meant that we under-
stood each other, and thereafter neglected me for
a month, being always with Johnny. As I have
said, this episode is not in the play; so though
I dedicate Peter Pan to you I keep the smile,
with the few other broken fragments of immor-
tality that have come my way.

21a Gad Ralf
THE NURSERY

The night nursery of the Darling family, which is
the scene of our opening Act, is at the top of a
rather depressed street in Bloomsbury. We have
a right to place it where we will, and the reason
Bloomsbury is chosen is that Mr. Roget once lived
there. So did we in days when his Thesaurus was
our only companion in London; and we whom he
has helped to wend our way through life have al-
ways wanted to pay him a little compliment. The
Darlings therefore lived in Bloomsbury.

It ts a corner house whose top window, the im-
portant one, looks upon a leafy square from which
Peter used to fly up to it, to the delight of three
children and no doubt the irritation of passers-by.
The street is still there, though the steaming sau-
sage shop has gone; and apparently the same cards
perch now as then over the doors, inviting homeless
ones to come and stay with the hospitable inhabi-
tants. Since the days of the Darlings, however, a

3

4 ; PETER PAN [act |

lick of paint has been.applied; and our corner house —
in particular, which has swallowed its neighbour, |
blooms with awful freshness as if the colours had |
been discharged upon it through a hose. Its card |
now says “No children,’ meaning maybe that the |
goings-on of Wendy and her brothers have given —
the house a bad name. As for ourselves, we have
not been im it since we went back to reclaim our
old Thesaurus.

That is what we call the Darling house, but you ©
may dump it down anywhere you like, and if you
think it was your house you are very probably
right. It wanders about London looking for any-
body in need of it, like the little house in the Never
Land.

The blind (which is what Peter would have called
the theatre curtain if he had ever seen one) rises on
that top room, a shabby little room if Mrs. Dar-
ling had not made it the hub of creation by her cer-
tainty that such it was, and adorned it to match
with a loving heart and ali the scrapings of her
purse. The door on the right leads into the day
nursery, which she has no right to have, but she
made it herself with nails in her mouth and a paste-
pot in her hand. This ts the door the children will .
come in by. There are three beds and (rather

1] PETER PAN 5

oddly) a large dog-kennel; two of these beds, with
the kennel, being on the left and the other on the
right. The coverlets of the beds (if visitors are
expected) are made out of Mrs. Darling’s wedding-
gown, which was such a grand affair that it still
keeps them pinched.’ Over each bed is a china
house, the size of a linnet’s nest, containing a night-
light. The fire, which is on our right, is burning as
discreetly as if it were in custody, which in a sense
it is, for supporting the mantelshelf are two wooden
soldiers, home-made, begun by Mr. Darling, fin-
ished by Mrs. Darling, repainted (unfortunatel )
by John Darling. On the fire-guard hang incor
plete parts of children’s night attire. The door the

parents will come in by is on the left. At the back
is the bathroom door, with a cuckoo clock over it;
and in the centre is the window, which is at present
ever so staid and respectable, but half an hour
hence (mamely at 6.30 p.m.) will be able to tell a
very strange tale to the police.

The only occupant of the room at present is
Nana the nurse, reclining, not as you might expect
on the one soft chair, but on the floor. She is a
Newfoundland dog, and though this may shock the
grandiose, ihe not exactly affluent will make allow-
ances. The Darlings could not afford to have a

6 PETER PAN [act

nurse, they could not afford indeed to have chil-
dren; and now you are beginning to understand
how they did it. Of course Nana has been trained
by Mrs. Darling, but like all treasures she was born
to it. In this play we shall see her chiefly inside the
house, but she was just as exemplary outside, es-
corting the two elders to school with an umbrella
in her mouth, for instance, and butting them back
into line if they strayed.

The cuckoo clock strikes six, and Nana springs
into life. This first inoment wm the play is tremen-
dously important, for if the actor playing Nana
does not spring properly we are undone. She will
probably be played by a boy, if one clever enough
can be found, end must never be on two legs ex-
cept on those rare occasions when an ordinary
nurse would be on four. This Nana must go about
all her duties in a most ordinary manner, so that
you know in your bones that she performs them
just so every evening at six; naturalness must be
her passion; indeed, it should be the aim of every
one in the play, for which she is now setting the
pace. All the characters, whether grown-ups or
babes, must wear a child’s outlook on life as their
only important adornment. If they cannot help
being funny they are begged to go away. A good

ee

1] PETER PAN ia:

motto for all would be ‘The little less, and how
much it is.”

Nana, making much use of her mouth, ‘turns
down’ the beds, and carries the various articles on
the fire-guard across to them. Then pushing the
bathroom door open, she is seen at work on the
taps preparing Michael’s bath; after which she en-
ters from the day nursery with the youngest of the
family on her back.

MICHAEL (obstreperous). I won’t go to bed, I
won’t, I won’t. Nana, it isn’t six o’clock yet.
Two minutes more, please, one minute more?
Nana, I won’t be bathed, I tell you I will not be
bathed.

(Here the bathroom door closes on them, and
MRS. DARLING, who has perhaps heard his
cry, enters the nursery. She is the loveliest
lady in Bloomsbury, with a sweet moching
mouth, and as she is going out to dinner
to-night she is already wearing her eveiing
gown because she knows her children like to
see her in it. It is a delicious confection
made by herself out of nothing and other
people’s mistakes. She does not often go out

8 PETER PAN [act

to dinner, preferring when the children are in
bed to sit beside them tidying up their minds,
just as if they were drawers. If wenpvy
and the boys could keep awake ‘they might
see her repacking into their proper places
the many articles of the mind that have
strayed during the day, lingering humor-
ously over some of their contents, wondering
where on earth they picked this thing up,
making discoveries sweet and not so sweet,
pressing this to her cheek and hurriedly
stowing that out of sight. When they wake
in the morning the naughtinesses with which
they went to bed are not, alas, blown away,
but they are placed at the bottom of the
drawer; and on the top, beautifully aired,
are their prettier ih ia ready for the
new day.

As she enters the room she is startled to
sce a strange little face outside the window
and a hand groping as if tt wanted to
come in.)

MRS. DARLING. Who are you? (The un-

known disappears; she hurries to the window.)

1] PETER PAN 9

No one there. And yet I feel sure I saw a face.
My children! (She throws open the bathroom
door and micHaEt’s head appears gaily over the
bath. He splashes; she throws kisses to him and
closes the door. ‘Wendy, John,’ she cries, and gets
reassuring answers from the day nursery. She sits
down, relieved, on WENDY’s bed; and weNnvy and
JOHN come in,looking their smallest size, as children
tend to do to a mother suddenly in fear for them.)

JOHN (histrionically). We are doing an act;
we are playing at being you and father. (He
imitates the only father who has come under his
special notice.) A little less noise there.

wenpDy. Now let us pretend we have a baby.

JOHN (good-naturedly). Tam happy to inform
you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother.
(wENbyY gives way to ecstasy.) You have missed
the chief thing; you haven’t asked, ‘boy or

girl?’
: wENDy. I am so glad to have one at all, I
don’t care which it is.

JOHN (crushingly). That is just the differ-
ence between gentlemen and ladies. Now you

tell me.

10 PETER PAN [act

weENDy. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr.
Darling, you are now a father.
JOHN. Boy or girl?
WweENbDY (presenting herself). Girl.
JOHN. Tuts.
weENpDy. You horrid.
JOHN. Go on.
weNDy. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr.
Darling, you are again a father.
JOHN. Boy or girl?
WENDY. Boy. (soHN beams.) Mummy, it’s
‘hateful of him.
(MICHAEL emerges from the bathroom in
soun’s old pyjamas and giving his face a
last wipe with the towel.)
MICHAEL (expanding). Now, John, have me.
JoHN. We don’t want any more.
MICHAEL (contracting). Am I not to be born
at all?
JOHN. ‘I'wo is enough.
MICHAEL (wheedling). Come, John; boy,
John. (Appalied) Nobody wants me!
MRS. DARLING. I do.

MICHAEL (withaglimmer of hope). Boy or girl?

.] PETER PAN 11

MRS. DARLING (wrth one of those happy thoughts
of hers). Boy.
(Triumph of micuar.; discomfiture of
JOHN. MR. DARLING arrices, in no mood
unfortunately to gloat over this domestic
scene. He is really a good man as bread-
winners go, and it is hard luck for him to be
propelled into the room now, when if we had
brought him in a few minutes earlier or later
he might have made a fairer impression.
In the city where he sits on a stcol all day,
as fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all
the others on stools that you recognise him
not by his face but by his stool, but at home
the way to gratify him is to say that he has
a distinct personality. He is very con-
scientious, and in the days when mrs.
DARLING gave up keeping the house books
correctly and drew pictures instead (which
he called her guesses), he did all the totting
up for her, holding. her hand while he cal-
culated whether they could have Wendy or
not, and coming down on the right side. It
is with regret, therefore, that we introduce

12 PETER PAN [acr

him as a tornado, rushing into the nursery
in evening dress, but without his coat, and
brandishing in his hand a_ recalcitrant
white tie.)

MR. DARLING (implying that he has searched for
her everywhere and that the nursery ts a strange
place i which to find her). Ob, here you are,
Mary.

MRS. DARLING (knowing at once what is the
matter). What is the matter, George dear?

MR. DARLING (as tf the word were monstrous).
Matter! This tie, it will not tie. (He waves
sarcastic.) Not round my neck. Round the
bed-post, oh yes; twenty times have I made it
up round the bed-post, but round my neck, oh
dear no; begs to be excused.

MICHAEL (i% a joyous transport). Say it
again, father, say it again! |

MR. DARIING (witheringly). Thank you.
(Goaded by a suspiciously crooked smile on Rs.
DARLING’s face) I warn you, Mary, that unless
this tie is round my neck we don’t go out to
dinner to-night, and if I don’t go out to dinner
to-night I never go to the office again, and if I

1. | PETER PAN 13

don’t go to the office again you and I starve, and
our children will be thrown into the streets.
(The children blanch as they grasp the
gravity of the situation.)
MRS. DARLING. Let me try, dear.
(In a terrible silence their progeny cluster
round them. Will she succeed? Theor
fate depends on it. She fails—mno, she
succeeds. In another moment they are wild-
ly gay, romping round the room on each
other’s shoulders. Father is even a better
horse than mother. micHaEL is dropped
upon his bed, wENvy retires to prepare for
hers, JoHN runs from NANA, who has re-
appeared with the bath towel.)
soun (rebellious). I won’t be bathed. You
needn’t think it.
MR. DARLING (in the grand manner). Go and
be bathed at once, sir.
(With bent head soun follows nana into the
bathreom. MR. DARLING swells.)
MICHAEL (as he is put between the sheets).
Mother, how did you get to know me?
mR. DARLING. A little less noise there.

14. PETER PAN [acr

MICHAEL (growing solemn). At what time was
I born, mother?

MRS. DARLING. At two o’clock in the night-

time, dearest.

MICHAEL. Oh, mother, I hope I didn’t wake

you.

MRS. DARLING. They are rather sweet, don’t

you think, George?

MR. DARLING (doting). ‘There is not their

equal on earth, and they are ours, ours!
(Unfortunately NANA has come from the
bathroom for a sponge and she collides with
his trousers, the first pair he has ever had
with braid on them.)

MR. DARLING. Mary, it is too bad; just look

at this; covered with hairs. Clumsy, clumsy!
(wana goes, a drooping figure.)

MRS. DARLING. Let me brush you, dear.
(Once more she is successful. They are now
by the fire, and micuarn is in bed doing
idiotic things with a teddy bear.)

MR. DARLING (depressed). I sometimes think,

Mary, that it is a mistake to have a dog for a
nurse.

1] PETER PAN 15

MRS. DARLING. George, Nana is a treasure.

MR. DARLING. No doubt; but I have an un-
easy feeling at times that she looks upon the
children as puppies.

MRS. DARLING (rather faintly). Oh no, dear
one, I am sure she knows they have souls."

MR. DARLING (profoundly). { wonder, I wonder.

(The opportunity has come for her to tell
him of something that is on her mind.)

MRS. DARLING. George, we must keep Nana.
I will tell you why. (Her seriousness impresses
him.) My dear, when I came into this room
to-night I saw a face at the window.

MR. DARLING (incredulous). A face at the
window, three floors up? Pooh!

MRS. DARLING. It was the face of a little boy;
he was trying to get in. George, this is not the
first time I have seen that boy.

MR. DARLING (beginning to think that this may
be-a man’s job). Ohot

MRS. DARLING (making sure that micHaeL does
not hear). ‘The first time was a week ago. It
was Nana’s night out, and I had been drowsing

here by the fire when suddenly I felt a draught,

16 PETER PAN | [act

as if the window were open. I looked round and
I saw that boy—in the room.

MR. DARLING. In the room?

MRS. DARLING. I screamed. Just then Nana
came back and she at once sprang at him.
The boy leapt for the window. She pulled
down the sash quickly, but was too late to catch
him.

MR. DARLING (who. knows he would not have
been too late). 1 thought so!

MRS. DARLING. Wait. The boy escaped, but
his shadow had not time to get out; down came
the window and cut it clean off.

MR. DARLING (heavily). Mary, Mary, why
didn’t you keep that shadow? |

MRS. DARLING (scoring). I did. I rolled it
up, George; and here it is.

(She produces it from a drawer. They un-
roll and examine the flimsy thing, which is
not more material than a puff of smoke, and
if let go would probably float into the ceiling
without discolouring it. Yet it has human
shape. As they nod their heads over it they
present the most satisfying picture on earth,

1] PETER PAN 17

two happy parents conspiring cosily by the
fire for the good of their children.)

MR. DARLING. It is nobody I know, but he
does look a scoundrel.

MRS. DARLING. I think he comes back to get
his shadow, George.

MR. DARLING (meaning that the miscreant has
now a father to deal with). Idaresay. (He sees
himself telling the story to the other stools at the
office.) There is money in this, my love. I
shall take it to the British Museum to-morrow
and have it priced.

"(The shadow is rolled up and replaced wn
the drawer.)

MRS. DARLING (like a guilty person). George,
I have not. told you all; I am afraid to.

MR. DARLING (who knows exactly the right
moment to treat a woman as a beloved child).
Cowardy, cowardy custard.

MRS. DARLING (pouting). No, I’m not.

MR. DARLING. Qh yes, you are.

MRS. DARLING. George, I’m not.

mR. DARLING. Then why not tell? (Thus
cleverly soothed she goes on.)

18 PETER PAN [act

mrs. partinc. The boy was not alone that
first time. He was accompanied by—I don’t
know how to describe it; by a ball of light, not as
big as my fist, but it darted about the room like
a living thing.

MR. DARLING (though open-minded). That is
very unusual. It escaped with the boy?

MRS. DARLING. Yes. (Sliding her hand into
his.) George, what can all this mean?

MR. DARLING (ever ready). What indeed!.

(This intimate scene is broken by the return
of NANA with a bottle in her mouth.) i

MRS. DARLING (at once dissembling). What is
that, Nana? Ah, of course; Michael, it is your
medicine.

MICHAEL (promptly). Won't take it.

MR. DARLING (recalling his youth). Beaman,
Michael.

MICHAEL. Won’t.

MRS. DARLING (weakly). Dll get you a lovely
chocky to take after it. (She leaves the room,
though her husband calls after her.)

MR. DARLING. Mary, don’t pamper him.
When I was your age, Michael, I took medicine

1] PETER PAN 19

without a murmur. I said ‘Thank you, kind
parents, for giving me bottles to make me well.’
(wENby, who has appeared in her night-
gown, hears this and believes.)
wEeNDy. That medicine you sometimes take

is much nastier, isn’t it, father?

MR. DARLING (valuing her support).. Ever so_

must nastier. And as an example to you,
Michael, I would take it now (thankfully) it 1
hadn’t lest the bottle.
wENDY (elways glad to be of service). 1 know
where it is, father. Tl fetch it.
(She is gone before he can stop her. He
turns for help to soun, who has come from
¢ the bathroom attired for bed.)
MR. partinc. John, it is the most beastly
stuff. It is that sticky sweet kind.
JOHN (who is perhaps still playing at parents).
Never mind, father, it will soon be over.
(A spasm of ill-will to soun cuts through
MR. DARLING, and is gone. WENDY returns
panting.)
wENpDy. Here it is, father; I have been as

quick as I could.

,

20 PETER PAN [acT

MR. DARLING (with a sarcasm that is completely
thrown away on her). You have been wonder-
.fully quick, precious quick!

(He is now at the foot of micHaEt’s bed,

NANA is by its side, holding the medicine

spoon insimuatingly in her mouth.)

WENDY (proudly, as she pours out mR. DAR-
Line’s medicine). Michael, now you will see how
father takes it. ,

MR. DARLING (hedging). Michael first.

MICHAEL (full of unworthy suspicions). Father’
first.

MR. DARLING. It will make me sick, you know.

JOHN (lightly). Come on, father.

MR. DARLING. Hold your tongue, sir.

WENDY (disturbed). I thought you took it
quite easily, father, saying ‘Thank you, kind

ve >
parents, fox

MR. DARLING. That is not the point; the
point is that there is more in my glass fhan in
Michael’s spoon. It isn’t fair, I swear though
it were with my last breath, it is not fair.

MICHAEL (coldly). Father, I’m waiting,

1] PETER PAN - 9

‘MR. DARLING. It’s all very well to say you
are waiting; so am I waiting.
MICHAEL. Father’s a cowardy custard.
MR. DARLING. - So are you a cowardy custard.
(They are now glaring at each other.)
MICHAEL. I am not frightened.
MR. DARLING. Neither am I frightened.
MICHAEL. Well, then, take it.
MR. DARLING. Well, then, you take it.
WENDY (butting in again). Why not take it
at the same time?
MR. DARLING (haughtily). Certainly. Are you
ready, Michael?
WENDY (as age 4 has happened). One—
two—three.
(micHsaEL partakes, but MR. DARLING Tre-
sorts to hattky-panky.)
goun. Father hasn’t taken his!
(micHAEL howls.)
WENDY (ineapressibly pained). Oh father!
MR. DARLING (who has been hiding the glass be-
hind him). What do you mean by ‘oh father’?
Stop that row, Michael. I meant to take mine

but I—missed it. (nana shakes her head -sadly

22 PETER PAN [acr

over him, and goes into the bathroom. They are
all looking as if they did not admire him, and
nothing so dashes a temperamental man.) 1 Say,
I have just thought of a splendid joke. (They
brighten.) I shall pour my medicine into Nana’s
bowl, and she will drink it thinking it is milk!
(The pleasantry does not appeal, but he prepares
the joke, listening for appreciation.)

WENDY. Poor darling Nana!

MR. DARLING. You silly little things; to your
beds every one of you; I am ashamed of you.

(They steal. to their beds ag x18. DARLING
returns with the chocolate.)
\
MRS. DARLING. Well, is it all over?

(Father glares.)

MR. DARLING. All over, dear, quite satisfac-

MICHAEL. Father didn’t

_torily. (ana comes back.) Nana, good dog,
good girl; I have put a little milk into your
bowl. (The bowl is by the kennel, and naxa
begins to lap, only begins. She retreats into the

kennel.)

MRS. DARLING. What is the matter, Nana?
,

MR. DARLING (wnedsily). Nothing, nothing.

1] PETER PAN 23

MRS. DARLING (smelling the bowl). George, it

is your medicine!
(The children break into lamentation. He
gives his wife an imploring look; he is
begging for one smile, but does not get tt.
In consequence he goes from bad to worse.)

MR. DARLING. It was only a joke. Much good
my wearing myself to the bone trying to be
funny in this house. :

WENDY (on her knees by the kennel). Father,
Nana is crying. |

MR. DARLING. Coddle her; nobody coddles
me. Oh dear no.. I am only the bread-winner,
why should I be coddled? Why, why, why?

¢MRS. DARLING. George, not so loud ; the
servants will hear you.
(There is only one maid, absurdly small too,
but they have got into the way of calling her .-
the servants.)

MR. DARLING (defiant). Let them hear me;
bring.in the whole world. ( The desperate man,
who has not been in fresh cir for days, has now
lost-all. self-control.) I refuse to allow that dog

: ~ 6 . 7
to lord it m my nursery for one hour longer.

24 PETER PAN [act

(wana supplicates him.) In vain, in vain, the
proper place for you is the yard, and there you
go to be tied up this instant.

(wana again retreats into the kennel, and
the children add their prayers to hers.)

MRS. DARLING (who knows how contrite he wiil
be for this presently). George, George, remember
what I told you about that boy.

MR. DARLING. Am I master in this house or
is she? (J'o nana fiercely) Come along. (He
thunders at her, but she indicates that she has rea-
sons not worth troubling him with for remaining
where she is. He resorts to a false bonhomie.)
‘There, there, did she think he was angry with
her, poor Nana? (She wriggles a response in the
affirmative.) Good Nana, pretty Nana. (She
has seldom been called pretty, and it has the old
effect. She plays rub-a-dub with her paws, which
is how a dog blushes.) She will come to her kind
master, won’t she? won’t she? (She advances,
retreats, waggles her head, her tail, and eventually
goes to him. He seizes her collar in an iron grip

and amid the cries of his progeny drags her from

1] PETER PAN 25

the room. They listen, for her remonstrances are
not inaudible.)
MRS. DARLING. Be brave, my dears.
WENDY. He is chaining Nana up!
(This unfortunately is what he is doing,
though we cannot see him. Let us hope that
he then retires to his study, looks wp the
word ‘temper in his Thesaurus, and wnder
the influence of those benign pages becomes
a better man. In the meantime the children
have been put to bed mm unwonted silence,
-and mrs. DARLING lights the mght-lights
over the beds.)
JOHN (as the barking below goes on). She is
awfully unhappy.
weENDyY.- That is not Nana’s unhappy bark.
That is her bark when she smells danger.
MRS. DARLING (remembering that boy). Dan-
ger! Are you sure, Wendy?
weEnpy (the one of the family, for there is one
im every family, who can be trusted. to know or
not to know). Oh yes.
(Her mother looks this way and that from
the window.)

26 PETER PAN [act
ek

Joun. Is anything there?

MRS. DARLING. All quite quiet and still. Oh,
how I wish I was not going out to dinner to-night.

MICHAEL. Can anything harm us, mother,
after the night-lights are lit?

MRS. DARLING. Nothing, precious. They are
the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her
children.

(Nevertheless we may be sure she means to
tell uiza, the little maid, to look in on them
frequently till she comes home. She goes
from bed to bed, after her custom, tucking
them in and crooning a lullaby.)

MICHAEL (drowsily). Mother, I’m glad of you.

MRS. DARLING (with « last look round, her hand
on the switch). Dear night-lights that protect
my sleeping babes, burn clear and_ steadfast
to-night.

(The nursery darkens and she is gone, in-
tentionally leaving the door ajar. Something
uncanny is going to happen, we expect. for
a quiver has ju ssed through the room, just
sufficient to touch the nght-lights. They
blink three times one after the other and go

1. |

c.

PETER PAN 27

owt, precisely as children (whon: jar iliarity
has made them resemble) fall asieey. There
is another light in the room now. »o larger
than MRS. DARLING’s fist, and in the time
we have taken to say this it has been into the
drawers and wardrobe and searched pockets,
as it darts about looking for a certain
shadow. Then the window is blown open,
probably by the smallest and therefore most
mischievous star, and PETER PAN flies into
the room. In so far as he is dressed at all it
ws m autumn leaves and cobwebs.)

ETER (in a whisper). Tinker Bell, Tink, are

you there? (4 jug lights wp.) Ob, do come out
of that jug. (tink flashes hither and thither.)
Do you know where they put it? (The answer

comes as of atinkle of bells; itis the fairy language.

PETER can speak it, but it bores him.) Which big

box? This one? But which drawer? Yes, do_

show me. (TINK pops into the drawer where the

shadow is, but before prrer can reach it, wenpy

moves in her sleep. He flies onto the mantelshelf

as ahiding-place. Then, as she has not waked, he

flutters over the beds as an casy way to observe the
'

28 PETER PAN [acr

occupants, closes the window softly, wafts himself
to the drazw!* and scatters its contents to the floor,
as kings on their wedding day toss ha’ pence to the
crowd: Inhis joy at finding his shadow he forgets
that he has shut up Tnx in the drawer. He sits on
the; floor with the shadow, confident that he and it
will jo like drops of water. Then he tries to
stick tt on with soap from the bathroom, and
this failing also, he subsides dejectedly on the
floor. This wakens wenvy, who sits wp, and is
pleasantly interested to see a stranger.)
WENDY (courteously). Boy, why are you
crying?
(He jumps up, and crossing to the foot of the
bed bows to her in the fairy way. WENDY,
impressed, bows to him from the bed.)
peTER. What is your name?
WENDY (well satisfied). Wendy Moira Angela
Darling. What is yours?
PETER (finding it lamentably brief). Peter Pan.
weENpy. Is that all?
PETER (biting his lip). Yes.
WENDY (politely). I am so sorry.
PETER. It doesn’t matter.

tJ PETER PAN 29

wenpy. Where do you live?

PETER. Second to the right and ” en straight
on till morning.

weNpDy. What a funny address! ,

PETER. No, it isn’t.

wENDy. I mean, is that what they put on
the letters?

| PETER. Don’t get any letters.

wENDY. But your mother gets letters?

PETER. Don’t have a mother.

WENDY. Peter!

(She leaps out of bed to put her arms
round him, but he draws back; he does
not know why, but he knows he must
draw back.) Ye

PETER. You mustn’t touch me.

wenpy. Why?
PETER. No one must ever touch me.
weNnpby. Why?
PETER. I don’t know.
(He is never touched by any one in the play.)
wenpy. No wonder you were crying.
PETER. I wasn’t crying. But I can’t get my

’ shadow to stick on.

30 PETER PAN é . [acr

wenpy. It has come off! How awful.
(Looking at the spot where he had lain.) Peter,
you have been trying to stick it on with soap!

PETER (snappily). Well then?

WENDY. It must be sewn on.

PETER. What is ‘sewn’?

weNbDy. You are dreadfully ignorant.

PETER. No, I’m not.

wenpvy. I will sew it on for you, my little

. man. But we must have more light. (She

” touches something, and to his astonishment the
room is ulummated.) Sit here. I dare say it
will hurt a little.

PETER (a recent remark of hers rankling). I
never cry. (She seems to attach the shadow. He
tests the combination.) It isn’t quite itself yet.

wenpy. Perhaps I should have ironed it.

{ft awakes and is as glad to be back with him as
he to have it. He and his shadow dance together.
He is showing off now. He crows like a cock.
He would fiy in order to tin press Wunby further if
end} he knew that there ts anything unusual in that.)
PETER. Wendy, look, look; oh the clever-

ness of me!

ae PETER PAN 31

WENDY. You conceit; of course I did
nothing!

PETER. You did a little.

WENDY (wounded). <A little! If I am no use
I can at least withdraw.

(With one haughty leap she is again im

- bed with the sheet over her face: Popping

on to the end of the bed the artful one
appeals.)

PETER. Wendy, don’t withdraw. I can’t
help crowing, Wendy, when I’m pleased with
myself. Wendy, one girl is worth more than
twenty boys. |

“WENDY (peeping over the shect). You really
; think so, Peter? .

PETER. Yes, I do.

wenvy. I think it’s perfectly sweet of you,
and shall getupagain. (They sit together on the
side of the bed.) I shall give youa kiss if you like.

PETER. Thank you. (He holds out his hand.)

wEnDY (aghast). Don’t you know what a kiss is?

PETER. I shall know when you give it me.
(Not to hurt his feelings she gives him her thim-
ble.) Now shall I give you a kiss?

32 PETER PAN [ACT

WENDY (primly). If you please. (He pulis an |

acorn button off his person and bestows it on her.
- She is shocked but considerate.) I will wear it on
this chain round my neck. Peter, how old are
you?

PETER (blithely). I don’t know, but quite
young, Wendy. I ran away the day I was born.

weEeNDy. Ran away, why?

PETER. Because I heard father and mother
talking of what I was to be when I became a man.
I want always to be a little boy and to have fun;
so I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived
a long time among the fairies.

WENDY (with great cyes). You know fairies,
Peter!

PETER (surprised that this should be a recom-
mendation). Yes, but they are nearly all dead
now. (Baldly) You see, Wendy, when the first
baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke
into a thousand pieces and they all went skip-
ping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.
And now when every new baby is born its first
laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one
fairy for every boy or girl.

1] PETER PAN 33

WENDY (breathlessly). : Ought to be? Isn’t
there?

PETER. Oh no. Children know such a lot
now. Soon they don’t believe in fairies, and
every time a child says ‘I don’t believe in
fairies’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls
‘down dead. (He skips about heartlessly.)

WENDY. Poor things!

PETER (to whom this statement recalls a for-
gotten friend). I can’t think where she has gone.
Tinker Bell, Tink, where are you?

WENDY (thrilling). Peter, you don’t mean to
tell me that there is a fairy in this room!

PETER (flitting about in search). She came
with me. You don’t hear anything, do you?

wenpby. I hear—the only sound I hear is like
a tinkle of bells.

PETER. hat is the fairy language. I hear
it too.

wENDY. It seems to come from over there.

PETER (with shameless glee). Wendy, I believe
I shut her up in that drawer!

(He releases t1nx, who darts about in a

34 PETER PAN [acr

fury using language it is perhaps as well
we don’t understand.)

You needn’t say that; I’m very sorry, but
how could I know you were in the drawer?

WENDY (her eyes dancing in pursuit of the
delicious creature). Oh, Peter, if only she would
‘stand still and let me see her!

PETER (indifferently). They hardly ever stand
still.

(To show that she can do even this TINK
pauses between two ticks of the cuckoo
clock.)

WENDY. I see her, the lovely! where is she
now?

PETER. She is behind the clock. Tink, this
lady wishes you were her fairy. (The answer
comes immediately.)

weEeNDy. What does she say?

PETER. She is not very polite. She says you
are a great ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.
You know, Tink, you can’t be my fairy because
I am a gentleman and you are a lady.

(TINK replies.)

wenpby. What did she say?

eo

| PETER PAN 35

PETER. She said ‘You silly ass.’ She is quite a
common girl, you know. She is called Tinker Bell
because she mends the fairy pots and kettles.

(They have reached a chair, wexvy in the
ordinary way and perer through a hole in
the back.)

weENDY. Where do you live now?

PETER. With the lost boys.

weEnpDYy. Who are they?

PETER. They are the children who fall out of
their prams when the nurse is looking the other
way. If they are not claimed in seven days
they are sent far away to the Never Land. |
I’m captain.

. WENDY. What fun it must be.

PETER (crafiily). Yes, but we are rather
lonely. You see, Wendy, we have no female
companionship.

weNpy. Are none of the other children
girls?

PETER. Oh no; girls, you know, are much

too clever to fall out of their prams.

wenpy. Peter, it is perfectly lovely the way
you talk about girls. John there just despises us.

36 PETER PAN "eee

(peTER, for the first time, has a good look
at JOHN. He then neatly tumbles him out
of bed.)

You wicked! you are not captain here. (She
bends over her brother who is prone on the floor.)
After all he hasn’t wakened, and you meant to
be kind. (Having now done her duty she forgets
JOHN, who blissfully sleeps on.) Peter, you may
give me a kiss.

PETER (cynically). I thought you would want
it back.

(He offers her the thimble.)

WENDY (artfully). Oh dear, I didn’t mean a
kiss, Peter. I meant a thimble.

PETER (only half placated). What is that?

wenDy. Itis like this. (She leans forward to
give a demonstration, but something prevents the
meeting of their faces.)

PETER (satisfied). Now shall I give you a
thimble?

weNDy. If you please. (Before he can even
draw near she screams.)

PETER. What is it?

t] PETER PAN 37

WENDY. It was exactly as if some one were

pulling my hair!
’ prTeR. That must have been Tink. I never
knew her so naughty before.
(t1nK speaks. She is in the jug agai.)
weNDy. What does she say?

PETER. She says she will do that every time
I give you,a thimble.

WENDY. But why?

PETER (equally nonplussed). Why, Tink?
(He has to translate the answer.) She said ‘You
silly ass’ again.

WENDY. She is very impertinent. (They are
sitting on the floor now.) Peter, why did you
come to our nursery window?

peter. To try to hear stories. None of us —
knows any stories.

wenpby. How perfectly awful!

PETER. Do you know why swallows build in
the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories.
Wendy, your mother was telling you such a
lovely story.

wenpy. Which story was it?

Beye PETER PAN far

PETER. About the prince, and he couldn’t
find the lady who wore the glass slipper.

wenpy. That was Cinderella. Peter, he
found her and they were happy ever after.

PETER. Tam glad. (They have worked their
way along the floor close to each other, but he now
jumps up.)
wenpy. Where are you going?

PETER (already on his way to the window). To
tell the other boys.

WENDY. Don’t go, Peter. I know lots of
stories. The stories I could tell to the boys!

PETER (gleaming). Come on! We'll fly.

wEeNDY. Fly? You can fly!

(How he would like to rip ihose stories out
of her; he is dangerous now.)

PETER. Wendy, come with me.

WENDY. Oh dear, I mustn’t. Think of
mother. Besides, I can’t fly.

PETER. I'll teach you.

WENDY. How lovely to fly!

PETER. T’ll teach you how to jump on the
wind’s back and then away we go. Wendy, when |
you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be

tJ PETER PAN Be RS ©
eas ee ee ae

flying about with me, saying funny things to
the stars. There are mermaids, Wendy, with
long tails. (She just suceceds in remaining oi

the nursery floor.) Wendy, how we should all
respect you. ;
(At this she strikes her colours.)

WENDY. Of course it’s awfully fas-cin-a-ting!
Would you teach John and Michael to fly too?

PETER (indifferently). If you like.

WENDY (playing rum-tum on soHN): John,
wake up; there is a boy here who is to teach us
to fly.

JoHN. Is there? Then I shall get up. (He
raises his head from the floor.) Hullo, I
aan up! ;

wenpby. Michael, open your eyes. This boy
is to teach us to fly.

(The sleepers are at once as awake as their
father’s razor; but before a question can
be asked xana’s bark is heard.)

gouNn. Out with the light, quick, hide!

(When the maid 11za, who is so small that
when she says she will never see ten again
one can scarcely believe her, enters with a

40 PETER PAN [act

firm hand on the troubled nana’s chain
the room is in comparative darkness.)
uizA. There, you suspicious brute, they are
perfectly safe, aren’t they? Every one of the
little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their
gentle breathing. (Nnana’s sense of smell here
helps to her undoing instead of hindering it. She
knows that they are in the room. MICHAEL, who is
behind the window curtain, is so encouraged by
Liza’s last remark that he breathes too loudly.
NANA knows that kind of breathing and tries to
break from her keeper’s control.) No more of it,
Nana. (Wagging a finger at her) I warn you if
you bark again I shall go straight for master and
missus and bring them home from the party, and
then won’t master whip you just! Come along,
you naughty dog.
(The unhappy nana is led away. The
children emerge eaulting from their various
hiding-places. In their brief absence from the
scene strange things have been done. to them;
but it is not for us to reveal a mysterious
secret of the stage. They look just the same.)
JOHN. I say, can you really fly?

14 PETER PAN 41

«

PETER. Look! (He is now over their heads.)
WENDY. Oh, how sweet!
PETER. I’m sweet, oh, I am sweet!

(It looks so easy that they try it first from
the floor and then from their beds, without
encouraging results.)

JOHN (rubbing his knees). How do you do it?

PETER (descending). You just think lovely
wonderful thoughts and they lift you up in the
air. (He is off again.)

JOHN. You are so nippy at it; couldn’t you
do it very slowly once? (PETER does it slowly.)
I’ve got it now, Wendy. (He tries; no, he has
not got it, poor stay-at-home, though he knows
the names of all the counties in England and

PETER does not know one.)

peter. I must blow the fairy dust on you
- first. (Fortunately his garments are smeared with
it and he blows some dust on each.) Now, try;
try from the bed. Just wriggle your shoulders
this way, and then let go.

(The gallant micuaxn is the first to let go,
and is borne across the room.)

42 PETER PAN [act

MICHAEL (with a yell that should have disturbed —
wizA). I flewed!
(soun lets go, and meets wENvy near the
bathroom door though they had both aimed
man opposite direction.)
wENDY. Qh, lovely!
JouN (tending to be upside down). How rip-
ping!
_ MICHAEL (playing whack on a chair). I do
‘like it!

THE THREE. Look at me, look at me, look at me!
(They are not nearly so elegant in the air as
PETER, but their heads have bumped the
ceiling, and there is nothing more delicious
than that.) |

JOHN (who can even go backwards). I say,

why shouldn’t we go out?

PETER. There are pirates.

JOHN. Pirates! (He grabs his tall Sunday

hat.) Let us go at once!
(TINK does not like it. She darts at their
hair. From down below in the street the
lighted window must present an unwonted
spectacle: the shadows of children revolving

PETER PAN 43

in the room like a merry-go-round. This is
perhaps what mr. and MRS. DARLING sec as
they come hurrying home from the party,
brought by nana who, you may be sure,
has broken her chain. prrer’s accomplice,
the little star, has seen them coming, and
agaim the window blows open.)

PETER (as if he had heard the star whisper

Cave). Now come!

@

(Breaking the circle he flies out of the win-
dow over the trees of the square and over the

house-tops, and the others follow like a flaght

of birds. The broken-hearted father and
mother arrive just in time to get a mip from
TINK as she too sets out for the Never Land.)

a CROPS

7. Cad hie ie |
THE NEVER LAND

When the blind goes up all is so dark that you
scarcely know it has gone up. This is because if
you were to see the island bang (as Peter would
say) the wonders of it might hurt your eyes. If you
all came in spectacles perhaps you could see it bang,
but to make a rule of that kind would be a pity.
The first thing seen is merely some whitish dots
trudging along the sward, and you can guess from
their tinkling that they are probably fairies of the
commoner sort going home afoot from some party
and having a cheery tiff by the way. Then Peter’s
star wakes up, and in the blink of it, which is much
stronger than in our stars, you can make out
masses of trees, and you think you see wild beasts
stealing past to drink, though what you see is not
the beasts themselves but only the shadows of them.
They are really out pictorially to greet Peter in
the way they think he would like them to greet him;
and for the same reason the mermaids basking in
the lagoon beyond the trees are carefully combing
their-hair; and for the same reason the pirates are
AT

48 PETER PAN [act

landing invisibly from the longboat, invisibly to
you but not to the redskins, whom none can see or
hear because they are on the war-path. The whole
island, in short, which has been having a slack time
in Peter’s absence, is now in a ferment because the
tidings has leaked out that he is on his way back;
and everybody and everything know that they will
catch it from him if they don’t give satisfaction.
While you have been told this the sun (another of
his servants) has been bestirring himself. Those of
you who may have thought it wiser after all to be-
gin this Act in spectacles may now take them off.
What you see is the Never Land. You have often
half seen it before, or even three-quarters, after the
mght-lights were lit, and you might then have
beached your coracle on it if you had not always
at the great moment fallen asleep. I dare say you
have chucked things on to it, the things you can’t
find in the morning. In the daytime you think the
Never Land is only make-believe, and so it is to the
likes of you, but this is the Never Land come true.
It is an open-air scene, a forest, with a beautiful
lagoon beyond but not really far away, for the
Never Land is very compact, not large and sprawly
with tedious distances between one adventure and
another, but nicely crammed. It is summer time

a Ra 6 eg

u. | PETER PAN 49

on the trees and on the lagoon but winter on the
river, which is not remarkable on Peter’s island
where all the four seasons may pass while you are
filling a jug at the well. Peter’s home is at this very
spot, but you could not point out the way into it
even if you were told which is the entrance, not
even tf you were told that there are seven of them.
You know now because you have just seen one of
the lost boys emerge. The holes in these seven
great hollow trees are the ‘doors’ down to Peter’s
home, and he made seven because, despite his clev-
erness, he thought seven boys must need seven doors.

The boy who has emerged from his tree is
Slightly, who has perhaps been driven from the
abode below by companions less musical than him-
self. Quite possibly a genius, Slightly has with
him his home-made whistle to which he capers en-
trancingly, with no audience save a Never ostrich
which is also musically inclined. Unable to imitate
Slightly’s graces the bird falls so low as to bur-
lesque them and is driven from the entertainment.
Other lost boys climb up the trunks or drop from
branches, and now we see the six of them, all in the
skins of animals they think they have shot, and so
round and furry in them that if they fall they roll.
Tootles is not the least brave though the most un-

50 PETER PAN [act

fortunate of this gallant band. He has been in
fewer adventures than any of them because the big
things constantly happen while he has stepped
round the corner; he will go off, for instance, in
some quiet hour to gather firewood, and then when
he returns the others will be sweeping up the blood.
Instead of souwring his nature this has sweetened
it and he is the humblest of the band. Nibs is more
gay and debonair, Slightly more conceited. Slightly
thinks he remembers the days before he was lost,
with their manners and customs. Curly is a pickle,
and so often has he had to deliver up his person
when Peter said sternly, ‘Stand forth the one who
did this thing,’ that now he stands forth whether he
has done it or not. The other two are First Twin
and Second Twin, who cannot be described because
we should probably be describing the wrong one.
Hunkering on the ground or peeping out of their
holes, the six are not unlike village gossips gath-
ered round the pump.

TOOTLES. Has Peter come back yet, Slightly?
SLIGHTLY (with a solemnity that he thinks suits
the occasion). No, Tootles, no.
(They are like dogs waiting for the master
to tell them that the day has begun.)

u.] PETER PAN 51

CURLY (as if PETER might be listening). I do
wish he would come back.

Toorires. I am always afraid of the pirates
when Peter is not here to protect us.

SLIGHTLY. I am not afraid of pirates. Noth-
ing frightens me. But I do wish Peter would
come back and tell us whether he has heard any-
thing more about Cinderella.

SECOND TWIN (with diffidence). Slightly, I
dreamt last night that the prince found Cinder-
ella.

FIRST TWIN (who is intellectually the swperior
of the two). Twin, I think you should not have
dreamt that, for I didn’t, and Peter may say we
oughtn’t to dream differently, being twins, you
know.

tooties. I am awfully anxious about Cinder-
ella. You see, not knowing anything about my
own mother I am fond of thinking that she was
rather like Cinderella.

(This is received with derision.)

niss. All I remember about my mother is
that she often said to father, ‘Oh how I wish I
had a cheque book of my own.’ I don’t know

52 PETER PAN [act

what a cheque book is, but I should just love to

give my mother one.

SLIGHTLY (as usual). My mother was fonder
of me than your mothers were of you. (Uproar.)
Oh yes, she was. Peter had to make up names
for you, but my mother had wrote my name on
the pimafore I was lost in. ‘Slightly Soiled’;
that’s my name.

3 (They fall upon him pugnaciously; not that
they are really worrying about their mothers,
who are now as important to them as a piece
of string, but because any excuse is good
enough for a shindy. Not for long is he
belaboured, for a sound is heard that sends
them scurrying down their holes: in a
second of time the scene is bereft of human’
life. What they have heard from near-by is
a verse of the dreadful song with which on
the Never Land the pirates stealthily
trumpet their approach—

Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag of skull and bones,

"A merry hour, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones!

di

PETER PAN 53

The pirates appear wpon the frozen river
dragging a raft, on which reclines among
cushions that dark and fearful man, CAPTAIN
Jas HOOK. A more villainous-looking
brotherhood of men never hung in a row on
Execution dock. Here, his great arms bare,
pieces of eight in his ears as ornaments, ts
the handsome cecco, who cut his name on the
back of the governor of the prison at Gao.
Heavier in the pull is the gigantic black who
has had many names since the first one
terrified dusky children on the banks of the
Guidjo-mo. BILL JUKES comes neat, every
inch of him tattooed, the same suxEs who got
six dozen on the Walrus from Funt. Fol-
lowing these are cooxson, said to be BLACK
MuRPHY’s brother (but this was never
proved) ; and GENTLEMAN STARKEY, once an
usher in a school; and sxyuicuts (Mor-
gan’s Skylights) ; and NoopLER, whose hands
are fixed on backwards; and the spectacled
boatswain, sMEK, the only Nonconformist in
HOOK’s crew; and other ruffians long known
and feared on the Spanish main.

54 PETER PAN ' [acr
Ree at We DAT APA ON

Cruelest jewel in that dark setting is
HOOK himself, cadaverous and blackavised,
his hair dressed in long curls which look
like black candles about to melt, his eyes
blue as the forget-me-not and of a profound
msensibility, save when he claws, at which
time a red spot appears in them. He has
an tron hook instead of a right hand, and it
as with this he claws. He is never more
sinister than when he is most polite, and the
elegance of his diction, the distinction of his
demeanour, show him one of a different
class from his crew, a solitary among un-
cultured companions. This courtliness im-
presses even his victims on the high seas,
who note that he always says ‘Sorry’ when
prodding them along the plank. A man of
indomitable courage, the only thing at which
he flinches is the sight of his own blood, which
as thick and of an unusual colour. At his
public school they said of him that he ‘bled
yellow.’ In dress he apes the dandiacal
associated with Charles IT., having heard
it said in an earlier period of his career that

m.] | PETER PAN 55
ee es a a

he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-
fated Stuarts. A holder of his own contri-
vance is in his mouth enabling him to smoke
two cigars at once. Those, however, who have
seen him in the flesh, which is an inadequate
term for his earthly tenement, agree that the
grimmest part of him is his iron claw.

They continue their distasteful singing as
they disembark—

Avast, belay, yo ho, heave to,
A-pirating we go,

And if we’re parted by a shot
We’re sure to meet below!

” nis, the only one of the boys who has not
sought safety im his tree, is seen for a
moment near the lagoon, and sTarKxEy’s
pistol is. at once wp-raised. The captain
twists his hook im him.

STARKEY (abject). Captain, let go!

HOOK. Put back that pistol, first.

STARKEY. T'was one of those boys you hate;
I could have shot him dead.

HOOK. Ay, and the sound would have brought

56 PETER PAN [act

Tiger Lily’s redskins on us. Do you want to lose
your scalp?

SMEE (wriggling his cutlass pleasantly). That
is true. Shall I after him, Captain, and tickle
him with Johnny Corkscrew? Johnny is a
silent fellow.

HooK. Not now. He is only one, and I want
to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for
them. (The boatswain whistles his instructions,
and the men disperse on their frightful errand.
With none to hear save sMEE, HOOK becomes
confidential.) Most of all I want their captain,
Peter Pan. “Iwas he cut off my arm. I
have waited long to shake his hand with this.
(Luxuriating) Oh, Vl tear him!

SMEE (always ready for achat). Yet I have oft
heard you say your hook was worth a score of
hands, for combing the hair and other homely
uses.

Hook. If I was a mother I would pray to have
my children born with this instead of that (his
left arm creeps nervously behind him. He has a
galling remembrance). Smee, Pan flung my arm
to a crocodile that happened to be passing by.

II. | PETER PAN 57

sMEE. I have often noticed your strange dread
of crocodiles.

HOOK (pettishly). Not of crocodiles but of
that one crocodile. (He lays bare a lacerated
heart.) .The brute liked my arm so much,
Smee, that he has followed me ever since, from
sea to sea, and from land to land, licking his
lips for the rest of me.

SMEE (looking for the bright side). In a way
it is a sort of compliment.

HOOK (with dignity). I want no such compli-
ments ; I want Peter Pan, who first gave the brute
his taste for me. Smee, that crocodile would
have had me before now, but by a lucky chance
he swallowed a clock, and it goes tick, tick, tick,
tick inside him; and so before he can reach me
I hear the tick and bolt. (He emits a hollow
rumble.) Once I heard it strike six within him.

SMEE (sombrely). Some day the clock will run
down, and then he’ll get you.

HOOK (abrokenman). Ay, that is the fear that
haunts me. (He rises.) Smee, this seat is hot;
odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I am burning.

(He has been sitting, he thinks, on one of the

58 PETER PAN [Act

island mushrooms, which are of enormous

size. But this is a hand-painted one placed

here in times of danger to conceal a chimney.

They remove it, and tell-tale smoke issues;

also, alas, the sound of children’s voices.)
sMEE. A chimney!

HOOK (avidly). Listen! Smee, ’tis plain
they live here, beneath the ground. (He replaces
the mushroom. His brain works tortwously.)

SMEE (hopefully). Unrip your plan, Captain.

HOOK. To return to the boat and cook a large
rich cake of jolly thickness with sugar on it,
green sugar. There can be but one room below,
for there is but one chimney. The silly moles
had not the sense to see that they did not need a
door apiece. We must leave the cake on the
shore of the mermaids’ lagoon. These boys are
always swimming about there, trying to catch
the mermaids. They will find the cake and
gobble it up, because, having no mother, they
don’t know how dangerous ’tis to eat rich damp
cake. They will die!

SMEE (fascinated). It is the wickedest, pretti-

est policy ever I heard of.

u. | PETER PAN 59

HOOK (meaning well). Shake hands on ’t.
sMEE. No, Captain, no.
(He has to link with the hook, but he does
not join in the song.)
HOOK. Yo ho, yo ho, when I say ‘paw,’
By fear they’re overtook,
Naught’s left upon your bones when
you 2
Have shaken hands with Hook!

(Frightened by a tug at his hand, smex is
joining in the chorus when another sound
stills them both. Itisatick, tick as of aclock,
whose significance Hook is, naturally, the
- first to recognise. ‘The crocodile!’ he cries,
and totters from the scene. sMEE follows.
A huge crocodile, of one thought compact,
passes across, ticking, and oozes after them.
The wood is now so silent that you may be
sure it is full of redskins. TIcER LILY
comes first. She is the belle of the Picca-
ninny tribe, whose braves would all have her
to wife, but she wards them off with a hatchet.
She puts her car to the ground and listens,

60 PETER PAN [acr

then beckons, and GREAT BIG LITTLE
PANTHER and the tribe are around her,
carpeting the ground. Far away some one
treads on a dry leaf.)

TIGER LILY. Pirates! (They do not draw their
knives; the knives slip into their hands.) Have
um scalps? What you say?

PANTHER. Scalp um, oho, velly quick.

THE BRAVES (in corroboration). Ugh, ugh, wah.
(A fire is lit and they dance round and over
at till they seem part of the leaping flames.
TIGER LILY invokes Manitou; the pipe
of peace is broken; and they crawl off
like a long snake that has not fed for many
moons. TOOTLES peers after the tail and
summons the other boys, who issue from
their holes.)

tooTLes. They are gone.

SLIGHTLY (almost losing confidence in him-
self). I do wish Peter was here.

FIRST TWIN. H’sh! What is that? (He is
gazing at the lagoon and shrinks back.) It is
wolves, and they are chasing Nibs!

a] PETER PAN 61
ecm ee eS i oe eae RS er

(The baying wolves are wpon them quicker
than any boy can scuttle down his tree.)
niss (falling among his comrades). Save me,
save me!
Tootites. What should we do?
SECOND Twin. What would Peter do?
SLIGHTLY. Peter would look at them through
his legs; let us do what Peter would do.
(The boys advance backwards, looking be-
tween their legs at the snarling red-eyed
enemy, who trot away foiled.)
FIRST TWIN (swaggering). We have saved you,
Nibs. Did you see the pirates?
niBs (sitting up, and agreeably aware that the
centre of interest is now to pass to him). No, but
I saw a wonderfuller thing, Twin. (All mouths
open for the information to be dropped into them.)
High over the lagoon I saw the loveliest great
white bird. It is flying this way. (They search
the firmament.)
tooTLes. What kind of a bird, do you think?
nips (awed). I don’t know; but it looked so
weary, and as it flies it moans ‘Poor Wendy.’

62 PETER PAN [act

SLIGHTLY (instantly). I remember now there

are birds called Wendies.

First TWIN (who has flown to a high branch).
See, it comes, the Wendy! (They all see it now.)
How white it is! (A dot of light is pursuing the
bird malignantly.)

roortes. Thatis Tinker Bell. Tink is trying
to hurt the Wendy. (He makes a cup of his
hands and calls) Hullo, Tink! (4 response
comes down in the fairy language.) She says
Peter wants us to shoot the Wendy.

nips. Let us do what Peter wishes.

sLiGHTLY. Ay, shoot it; quick, bows and

arrows.

TOOTLES (first with his bow). Out of the way,
Tink; Pll shoot it. (His bolt goes home, and
wENDY, who has been fluttering among the tree-
tops in her white nightgown, falls straight to
earth. No one could be more proud than tToo-
TLES.) I have shot the Wendy; Peter will be so
pleased. (From some tree on which T1nx is roost-
img comes the tinkle we can now translate, ‘You
silly ass.’ roories falters.) Why do you say

1. | PETER PAN 63

that? (The others feel that he may have blun-
dered, and draw away from TOOTLES.)

SLIGHTLY (examining the fallen one more
minutely). This is no bird; I think it must be
a lady.

niss (who would have preferred it to be a
bird). And Tootles has killed her.

cuRLY. Now I see, Peter was bringing her to
us. (They wonder for what object.)

SECOND Twin. To take care of us? (Un-
doubtedly for some diverting purpose.)

oMNEs (though every one of them had wanted
to have a shot at her). Oh, Tootles!

TOOTLES (gulping). I did it. When ladies
used to come to me in dreams I said ‘Pretty
mother,’ but when she really came I shot her!
(He perceives the necessity of a solitary life for
him.) Friends, good-bye.

SEVERAL (not very enthusiastic). Don’t go.

TooTLes. I must; I am so afraid of Peter.

(He has gone but a step toward oblivion
when he is stopped by a crowing as of some
victorious cock.)

omnes. Peter!

64 PETER PAN [Act

(They make a paling of themselves in front
of WENDY as PETER skims rownd the tree-
tops and reaches earth.)

PETER. Greeting, boys! (Their silence chafes
him.) I am back; why do you not cheer?
Great news, boys, I have brought at last a
mother for us all.

SLIGHTLY (vaguely). Ay, ay.

PETER. She flew this way; have you not
seen her?

SECOND TWIN (as PETER evidently thinks her
important). Oh mournful day!

TOOTLES (making a break in the paling). Peter,
T will show her to you.

THE OTHERS (closing the gap). No, no.

TOOTLES (majestically). Stand back all, and
let Peter see.

(The paling dissolves, and PETER sees
WENDY prone on the ground.)

PETER. Wendy, with an arrow in her heart!
(He plucks it out.) Wendy is dead. (He is not
so much pained as puzzled.)

curLy. I thought it was only flowers that die.

PETER. Perhaps she is frightened at being

Lae PETER PAN 65

dead? (None of them can say as to that.) Whose
arrow? (Not one of them looks at TOOTLES.)

TooTLes. Mine, Peter.

PETER (raising it as a dagger). Oh dastard
hand!

toottes (kneeling and baring his breast).
Strike, Peter; strike true.

PETER (undergoing a singular experience). I
cannot strike; there is something stays my hand.

(In fact wENvy’s arm has risen.)

wigs. °Tis she, the Wendy lady. See, her
arm. (To help a friend) I think she said ‘Poor
Tootles.’

PETER (investigating). She lives!

* sLiGHTLY (authoritatively). The Wendy lady
lives.
(The delightful feeling that they have been
cleverer than they thought comes over them
and they applaud themselves.)

PETER (holding up a button that is attached to
her chain). See, the arrow struck against this. It
‘is a kiss I gave her; it has saved her life.
sticHTLy. I remember kisses; let me see it.

(He takes it in his hand.) Ay, that is a kiss.

66 PETER PAN [acr

PETER. Wendy, get better quickly and I’ll
take you to see the mermaids. She is awfully
anxious to see a mermaid.

(TINKER BELL, who may have been off visit-
mg her relations, returns to the wood and,
under the impression that wenvy has been
got rid of, is whistling as gaily as a canary.
She is not wholly heartless, but is so small
that she has only room for one feeling at a
time.)

curLy. Listen to Tink rejoicing because she
thinks the Wendy is dead! (Regardless of spoil-
ing another’s pleasure) Tink, the Wendy lives.

(TINK gives expression to fury.)

SECOND TWIN (tell-tale). It was she who said
that you wanted us to shoot the Wendy.

PETER. She said that? Then listen, Tink, I
am your friend no more. (There is a note of
acerbity in TINK’s reply; it may mean ‘Who
wants you?’) Begone from me for ever. (Now
it ts a very wet tinkle.)

curLy. She is crying.

TooTLES. She says she is your fairy.

PETER (who knows they are not worth worrying

1. ] PETER PAN 67

about). Oh well, not for ever, but for a whole
week.
(TINK goes off sulking, no doubt with the
intention of giving all her friends an en-
tirely false impression of WENDY’s appear-
ance.)

Now what shall we do with Wendy?

cuRLY. Let us carry her down into the house.

sLicHTLy. Ay, that is what one does with
ladies.

PETER. No, you must not touch her; it
wouldn’t be sufficiently respectful.

sLicHtLty. That is what I was thinking.

tooTLes. But if she lies there she will die.

esticHtiy. Ay, she will die. It is a pity, but
there is no way out.

PETER. Yes, there is. Let us build a house
around her! (Cheers again, meaning that no
difficulty baffics perErR.) Leave all to me. Bring
the best of what we have. Gut our house. Be
sharp. (They race down their trees.)

(While vrrEeR is engrossed im measuring
weEnvy so that the house may fit her, soun
and MICHAEL, who have probably landed on

68 PETER PAN [acT

the island with a bump, wander forward,
so draggled and tired that if you were to ask
MICHAEL whether he is awake or asleep he
would probably answer ‘I haven’t tried yet.’)

MICHAEL (bewildered). John, John, wake up.
Where is Nana, John?

JOHN (with the help of one eye but not always
the same eye). It is true, we did fly! (Thankfully)
And here is Peter. Peter, is this the place?

(PETER, alas, has already forgotten them, as
soon maybe he will forget wenvy. The
first thing she should do now that she is here
ts to sew a handkerchief for him, and knot
it as a jog to his memory.)

PETER (curtly). Yes.

MICHAEL. Where is Wendy? (PETER points.)

JOHN (who still wears his hat). She is asleep.

MICHAEL. John, let us wake her and get her
to make supper for us.

(Some of the boys emerge, and he pinches
one.)

John, look at them!

PETER (still house-building). Curly, see that
these boys help in the building of the house.

a. | PETER PAN 69

soHN. Build a house?

curLty. For the Wendy.

JOHN (feeling that there must be some mistake
here). For Wendy? Why, she is only a girl.

curLy. That is why we are her servants.

JOHN (dazed). Are you Wendy’s servants?

PETER. Yes, and you also. Away with them.
(In another moment they are woodsmen hacking
at trees, with cuRLY as overseer.) Slightly, fetch
a doctor. (sLticHtLy reels and goes. He returns
professionally in soHN’s hat.) Please, sir, are
you’a doctor?

SLIGHTLY (trembling in his desire to give
satisfaction). Yes, my little man.

*PETER. Please, sir, a lady lies very ill.

SLIGHTLY (taking care not to fall over her).
Tut, tut, where does she lie?

peter. In yonder glade. (It is a variation of
a game they play.)

sticutty. I will put a glass thing in her
mouth. (He inserts an imaginary thermometer
in wenDy’s mouth and gives it a moment to record
its verdict. He shakes it and then consults it.)

PETER (anxiously). How is she?

70 PETER PAN [act

SLIGHTLY. Tut, tut, this has cured her.
PETER (leaping joyously). I am glad.
suicHTLy. I will call again in the evening.
Give her beef tea out of a cup with a spout to it,
tate bak:
(The boys are running up with odd articles
of furniture.)

PETER (with an already fading recollection of
the Darling nursery). These are not good
enough for Wendy. How I wish I knew the
kind of house she would prefer!

FIRST TWIN. Peter, she is moving in her sleep.

TOOTLES (opening WENDY’s mouth and gazing
down into the depths). Lovely!

PETER. Oh, Wendy, if you could sing the kind
of house you would like to have.

(It is as if she had heard him.)

WENDY (without opening her eyes).

I wish I had a woodland house,
The littlest ever seen,
With funny little red walls

And roof of mossy green.

(In the time she sings this and two other

verses, such is the urgency of PErER’s silent

r.] PETER PAN ral

orders that they have knocked down trees,
laid a foundation and put up the walls and
roof, so that she is now hidden from view.
‘Windows,’ cries PETER, and cuRLY rushes
them in, ‘Roses, and TooTLES arrives
breathless with a festoon for the door. Thus
springs into existence the most delicious
little house for beginners.)

First Twin. I think it is finished.

PETER. There is no knocker on the door.
(rooties hangs wp the sole of his shoe.) There
is no chimney; we must have a_ chimney.
(They await his deliberations anxiously.)

JOHN (unwisely critical). It certainly does
need a chimney.

(He is again wearing his hat, which PETER
seizes, knocks the top off it and places on the
roof. In the friendliest way smoke begins
to come out of the hat.)

PETER (with his hand on the knocker). All
look your best; the first impression is awfully im-
portant. (He knocks, and after a dreadful
moment of suspense, in which they cannot help
wondering if any one is inside, the door opens

72 PETER PAN [act

cy

and who should come out but wenvy! She has
evidently been tidying a little. She is quite sur-
prised to find that she has nine children.)

WENDY (genteelly). Where am I?

sLicHTLY. Wendy lady, for you we built this
house.

Nigs and TooTies. Oh, say you are pleased.

WENDY (stroking the pretty thing). Lovely,
darling house!

FIRST TWIN. And we are your children.

WENDY (affecting surprise). Oh?

OMNES (kneeling, with outstretched arms).
Wendy lady, be our mother! (Now that they
know it is pretend they acclaim her greedily. )

WENDY (not to make herself too cheap). Ought
I? Of course it is frightfully fascinating ; but
you see I am only a little girl; I have no real
experience.

omNeES. ‘hat doesn’t matter. What we need
is just a nice motherly person.

wENvy. Oh dear, I feel that is just exactly
what I am.

OMNES. It is, it is, we saw it at once. ~

WENDY. Very well then, I will do my best.

ur. | PETER PAN 73

(In their glee they go dancing obstreperously
round the little house, and she sees she must be
firm with them as well as kind.) Come inside at
once, you naughty children, I am sure your feet
are damp. And before I put you to bed I have
just time to finish the story of Cinderella.
(They all troop into the enchanting house,
whose not least remarkable feature is that tt
holds them. A vision of Liza passes, not
perhaps because she has any right to be
there; but she has so few pleasures and is
. so young that we just let her have a peep
at the little house. By and by PETER
comes out and marches up and down with
- drawn sword, for the pirates can be heard
carousing far away on the lagoon, and the
wolves are on the prowl. The little house,
its walls so red and its roof so mossy, looks
very cosy and safe, with a bright light show-
ing through the blind, the chimney smoking
beautifully, and PETER on guard. On our
last sight of him it is so dark that we just
guess he is the little figure who has fallen
asleep by the door. Dots of light come and

74

PETER PAN [acT u.

go. They are inquisitive fairies having
a look at the house. Any other child in
their way they would mischief, but they just
tweak PETER’s nose and pass on. Fairies,
you see, can touch him.)

AC Tait

® J an?
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a?
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ae aye S -,
eo 900 ,

ACH LL
THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON

It is the end of a long playful day on the lagoon.
The sun’s rays have persuaded him to give the
another five minutes, for one more race over the
waters before he gathers them up and lets in the
moon. There are many mermaids here, going plop-
plop, and one might attempt to count the tails
did they not flash and disappear so quickly. At
times a lovely girl leaps in the air seeking to get rid
of her excess of scales, which fall in a silver shower
as she shakes them off. From the coral grottoes be-
neath the lagoon, where are the mermaids’ bed-
chambers, comes fitful music.

One of the most bewitching of these blue-eyed
creatures is lying lazily on Marooners’ Rock, comb-
ing her long tresses and noting effects in a trans-
parent shell. Peter and his band are in the water
unseen behind the rock, whither they have tracked
her as if she were a trout, and at a signal ten pairs
of arms come whack upon the mermaid to enclose
her. Alas, this is only what was meant to happen,

77

78 PETER PAN [act

for she hears the signal (which is the crow of a
cock) and slips through their arms into the water.
It has been such a near thing that there are scales
on some of their hands. They climb on to the rock

crestfallen.

WENDY (preserving her scales as carefully as of
they were rare postage stamps). I did so want
to catch a mermaid.
PETER (getting rid of his). It is awfully diffi-
cult to catch a mermaid.
(The mermaids at times find it just as
difficult to catch him, though he sometimes
joins them in their one game, which consists
im lazily blowing their bubbles into the air
and seeing who can catch them. The
number of bubbles reTER has flown away
with! When the weather grows cold
mermaids migrate to the other side of the
world, and he once went with a great shoal
of them half the way.)

They are such cruel creatures, Wendy, that they

try to pull boys and girls like you into the water

and drown them.

WENDY (too guarded by this time to ask what he

PETER PAN 79

means precisely by ‘like you,’ though she is very

desirous of knowing). How hateful!

(She is slightly different in appearance now,
rather rounder, while soHN and MICHAEL
are not quite so round. The reason is that
when new lost children arrive at his under-
ground home preter finds new trees for
them to go up and down by, and instead of
fitting the tree to them he makes them fit the
tree. Sometimes it can be done by adding or
removing garments, but if you are bumpy,
or the tree is an odd shape, he has things done
to you with a roller, and after that you fit.

The other boys are now playing King
of the Castle, throwing each other into the
water, taking headers and so on; but these
two continue to talk.)

peter. Wendy, this is a fearfully important

rock. It is called Marooners’ Rock. Sailors are

marooned, you know, when their captain leaves

them on a rock and sails away.

wENDy. Leaves them on this little rock to

drown?

peter (lightly). Oh, they don’t live long.

80 PETER PAN [acr

Their hands are tied, so that they can’t swim.

When the tide is full this rock is covered with

water, and then the sailor drowns.
(weENDy is uneasy as she surveys the rock,
which is the only one in the lagoon and no
larger than a table. Since she last looked
around a threatening change has come over
the scene. The sun has gone, but the moon
has not come. What has come is a cold
shiver across the waters which has sent all
the wiser mermaids to their coral recesses.
They know that evil is creeping over the
lagoon. Of the boys PETER is of course
the first to scent it, and he has leapt to his
feet before the words strike the rock—

‘And if we’re parted by a shot
We’re sure to meet below.’

The games on the rock and around it end so
abruptly that several divers are checked in
the air. There they hang waiting for the
word of command from prerer. When they
get it they strike the water simultaneously,
and the rock is at once as bare as if suddenly

ut. | PETER PAN 81

they had been blown off it. Thus the
pirates find it deserted when their dinghy
strikes the rock and is nearly stove in by
the concussion.)

sMEE. Luff, you spalpeen, luff! (They are
SMEE and STARKEY, with TIGER LILY, their cap-
tive, bound hand and foot.) What we have got
to do is to hoist the redskin on to the rock and
leave her there to drown.

(T'0 one of her race this is an end darker than
death by fire or torture, for it is written in
the laws of the Piccaninnies that there is no
path through water to the happy hunting
ground. Yet her face is impassive; she is
the daughter of a chief and must die as a
chief’s daughter; it is enowgh.)

STARKEY (chagrined because she does not mewl).
No mewling. This is your reward for prowling
round the ship with a knife in your mouth.

TIGER LILY (stoically). Enough said.

SMEE (who would have preferred a farewell
palaver). So that’s it! On to the rock with
her, mate.

STARKEY (experiencing for perhaps the last

82 PETER PAN [act

time the stirrings of a man). Not so rough,
Smee; roughish, but not so rough.

SMEE (dragging her on to the rock). It is the
captain’s orders.

(A stave has in some past time been driven
into the rock, probably to mark the burial
place of hidden treasure, and to this they
moor the dinghy.)

WENDY (in the water). Poor Tiger Lily!

STARKEY. What was that? (The children
bob.)

PETER (who can imitate the captain’s voice so
perfectly that even the author has a dizzy feeling
that at times he was really Hook). Ahoy there,
you lubbers!

sTARKEY. It is the captain; he must be
swimming out to us.

SMEE (calling). We have put the redskin on
the rock, Captain.

PETER. Set her free.

sMEE. But, Captain
PETER. Cut her bonds, or T’ll plunge my
hook in you.

sMEE. This is queer!

ut. ] PETER PAN 83

STARKEY (unmanned). Let us follow the
captain’s orders.
(They undo the thongs and TIGER LILY
slides between their legs into the lagoon, for-
getting in her haste to utter her war-cry,
but PETER utters it for her, so naturally that
even the lost boys are deceived. It is at this
moment that the voice of the true HooK is
heard.)
HOOK. Boat ahoy!
_.SMEE (relieved). It is the captain.
' (H00K is swimming, and they help him to
scale the rock. He is in gloomy mood.)
STARKEY. Captain, is all well?
sMEE. He sighs.
sTARKEY. He sighs again.
sMEE (counting). And yet a third time he
sighs. (With foreboding) What’s up, Captain?
HOOK (who has perhaps found the large rich
damp cake untouched). The game is up. Those
boys have found a mother!
STARKEY. Oh evil day!
sMEE. What is a mother?
wenpy (horrified). He doesn’t know!

84 PETER PAN [act

HOOK (sharply). What was that?

(PETER makes the splash of a mermaid’s
tail.)

STARKEY. One of them mermaids.

HOOK. Dost not know, Smee? A mother is
—(he finds it more difficult to explain than he had
expected, and looks about him for an illustration.
He finds one in a great bird which drifts past in a
nest as large as the roomiest basin.) There is a
lesson in mothers for you! The nest must have
fallen into the water, but would the bird desert
her eggs? (PETER, who is now more or less off his
head, makes the sound of a bird answering in the
negative. The nest is borne out of sight.)

sTaRKEY. Maybe she is hanging about here
to protect Peter?

(x100k’s face clouds still further and rrTER
just manages not to call out that he needs
no protection.)

SMEE (not usually a man of ideas). Captain,
could we not kidnap these boys’ mother and
make her our mother?

HOOK. Obesity and bunions, ’tis a princely
scheme. We will seize the children, make them

1. | PETER PAN 85

walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our
mother!

WENDY. Never! (Another splash from
PETER. )

HOOK. What say you, bullies?

sMEE. There is my hand on ’t.

STARKEY. And mine.

Hook. And there is my hook. Swear. (All
swear.) But I had forgot; where is the redskin?

SMEE (shaken). That is all right, Captain; we
let her go.

HOOK (terrible). Let her go?

sMEE. *I'was your own orders, Captain.

STARKEY (whimpering). You called over the
water to us to let her go.

HOOK. Brimstone and gall, what cozening is
here? (Disturbed by their faithful faces) Lads,
I gave no such order.

sMEE. “Tis passing queer.

HooK (addressing the immensities). Spirit
that haunts this dark lagoon to-night, dost
hear me?

PETER (in the same voice). Odds, bobs, ham-
mer and tongs, I hear you.

86 PETER PAN [act

HOOK (gripping the stave for support). Who
are you, stranger, speak.
PETER (who is only too ready to speak). Iam
Jas Hook, Captain of the Jolly Roger.
HOOK (now white to the gills). No, no, you are
not.
PETER. Brimstone and gall, say that again
and Tl cast anchor in you.
HooK. If you are Hook, come tell me, who
am I?
PETER. A codfish, only a codfish.
HOOK (aghast). <A codfish?
SMEE (drawing back from him). Have we been
captained all this time by a codfish?
STARKEY. It’s lowering to our pride.
HOOK (feeling that his ego is slipping from
him). Don’t desert me, bullies.
PETER (top-heavy). Paw, fish, paw!
(There is a touch of the feminine in
HOOK, as m all the greatest pirates,
and it prompts him to try the guessing
game.)
HOOK. Have you another name?
PETER (falling to the lure). Ay, ay.

m1. | PETER PAN 87

HOOK (thirstily). Vegetable?

PETER. No.

HOOK. Mineral?

PETER. No.

Hook. Animal?

PETER (after a hurried consultation with
TOOTLES). Yes.

HOOK. Man?

PETER (with scorn). No.

HOOK. Boy?

PETER. Yes.

HOOK. Ordinary boy?

PETER. No!

HooK. Wonderful boy?

PETER (to WENDY’s distress). Yes!

HooK. Are you in England?

PETER. No.

HooK. Are you here?

PETER. Yes.

HooK (beaten, though he feels he has very
nearly got it). Smee, you ask him some ques-
tions.

sMEE (rummaging his brains). I can’t think

of a thing.

88 PETER PAN [act

PETER. Can’t guess, can’t guess! (Fownder-
ing in his cockiness) Do you give it up?
HOOK (eagerly). Yes.
PETER. All of you?
SMEE and STARKEY. Yes.
PETER (crowing). Well, then, I am Peter
Pan!
(Now they have him.)
HOOK. Pan! Into the water, Smee. Starkey,
mind the boat. ‘Take him dead or alive!
PETER (who still has all his baby teeth). Boys,
lam inio the pirates!
(For a moment the only two we can see are
in the dinghy, where soun throws himself
ON STARKEY. STARKEY wriggles into the
lagoon and JOHN leaps so quickly after him
that he reaches it first. The impression left
on STARKEY is that he is being attacked by
the twins. The water becomes stained.
The dinghy drifts away. Here and there
a head shows wm the water, and once it is
the head of the crocodile. In the growing
gloom some strike at their friends, sLicHTLY
getting TrootLEs in tke fourth rib while he

ut. | PETER PAN 89

himself is pinked by curry. It looks as if
the boys were getting the worse of it, which
is perhaps just as well at this point, because
PETER, who will be the determining factor in
the end, has a perplexing way of changing
sides if he is winning too easily. Hoox’s
tron claw makes a circle of black water
round him from which opponents flee like
fishes. There is only one prepared to enter
that dreadful circle. His name is Pan.
Strangely, it is not in the water that they
meet. HOOK has risen to the rock to breathe,
and at the same moment PETER scales it on
the opposite side. The rock is now wet and
as slippery as a ball, and they have to crawl
rather than climb. Suddenly they are face
to face. PETER gnashes his pretty teeth
with joy, and is gathering himself for the
spring when he sees he is higher up the rock
than his foe. Courteously he waits; HooK
sees his intention, and taking advantage of
it claws twice. PETER ts untouched, but wn-
fairness is what he never can get used to, and
in his bewilderment he rolls off the rock.

90 PETER PAN [Act

The crocodile, whose tick has been drowned
in the strife, rears its jaws, and HooK, who
has almost stepped into them, is pursued by
it to land. All is quiet on the lagoon now,
not a sound save little waves nibbling at the
rock, which is smaller than when we: last
looked at it. Two boys appear with the
dinghy, and the others despite their wounds
climb into it. They send the cry ‘Peter—
Wendy’ across the waters, but no answer
comes.

nips. They must be swimming home.

JOHN. Or flying.

FIRST Twin. Yes, that is it. Let us be off

and call to them as we go.

(The dinghy disappears with its load, whose
hearts would sink it if they knew of the peril
of weNvDy and her captain. From near and
far away come the cries ‘Peter—Wendy’
till we no longer hear them.

Two small figures are now on the rock,
but they have fainted. A mermaid who has
dared to come back in the stillness stretches
wp her arms and is slowly pulling wenvy

um. ] PETER PAN 91

into the water to drown her. weEnvy starts
up just in time.)

WENDY. Peter!

(He rouses himself and looks around him.)
Where are we, Peter?

PETER. We are on the rock, but it is getting

smaller. Soon the water will be over it. Listen!
(They can hear the wash of the relentless
little waves.)

weEeNDy. We must go.

PETER. Yes.

WENDY. Shall we swim or fly?

PETER. Wendy, do you think you could swim
or fly to the island without me?

* wenpy. You know I couldn’t, Peter; I am
just a beginner.

PETER. Hook wounded me twice. (He be-
lieves it; he is so good at pretend that he feels the
pain, his arms hang limp.) I can neither swim
nor fly.

wENDy. Do you mean we shall both be
drowned?

PETER. Look how the water is rising!

(They cover their faces with their hands.

92 PETER PAN [Act

ic ps ICS nh ann ete Be
Something touches wenvy as lightly as a
kiss.)

PETER (with little interest). It must be the tail
of the kite we made for Michael; you remember
it tore itself out of his hands and floated away.
(He looks wp and sees the kite sailing overhead.)
The kite! Why shouldn’t it carry you? (He
grips the tail and pulls, and the kite responds.)

wENpDy. Both of us!

PETER. It can’t lift two. Michael and Curly
tried.

(She knows very well that if it can lift her it
can lift him also, for she has been told by the
boys as a deadly secret that one of the queer
things about him is that he is no weight at
all. But it is a forbidden subject.)

weENbDy. I won’t go without you. Let us
draw lots which is to stay behind.

preter. And you a lady, never! (The tail is
in her hands, and the kite is tugging hard. She
holds out her mouth to peTER, but he knows they
cannot do that.) Ready, Wendy!

(The kite draws her out of sight across the
lagoon.

m1. |

PETER PAN 93

The waters are lapping over the rock now,
and PETER knows that it will soon be sub-
merged. Pale rays of light mingle with the
moving clouds, and from the coral grottoes is
to be heard a sound, at once the most musical
and the most melancholy in the Never Land,
the mermaids calling to the moon to rise.
PETER ts afraid at last, and a tremor runs
through him, like a shudder passing over
the lagoon; but on the lagoon one shudder
follows another till there are hundreds of
them, and he feels just the one.)

PETER (with a drum beating in his breast as if

he were a real boy at last). 'To die will be an

awf ully big adventure.

(The blind rises again, and the lagoon is now
suffused with moonlight. He is on the rock
stil, but the water is over his feet. The nest
is borne nearer, and the bird, after cooing
a message to him, leaves it and wings her
way upwards. PETER, who knows the bird
language, slips into the nest, first removing
the two eggs and placing them im sTaRKEY’s
hat, which has been left on the stave. The

94

PETER PAN [act

hat drifts away from the rock, but he uses
the stave as a mast. The wind is driving
him toward the open sea. He takes off his
shirt, which he had forgotten to remove while
bathing, and unfurls it as a sail. His
vessel tacks, and he passes from sight,
naked and victorious. The bird returns
and sits on the hat.)

veel Wer Og

ACT. ay
THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND

We see simultaneously the home under the ground
with the children in it and the wood above ground
with the redskins on it. Below, the children are
gobbling their evening meal; above, the redskins are
squatting in their blankets near the little house
guarding the children from the pirates. The only
way of communicating between these two parties is
by means of the hollow trees.

The home has an earthen floor, which is andes
for digging in if you want to go fishing; and owing
to there being so many entrances there is not much
wall space. The table at which the lost ones are
sitting is a board on top of a live tree trunk, which
has been cut flat but has such growing pains that
the board rises as they eat, and they have some-
times to pause in their meals to cut a bit more off
the trunk. Their seats are pumpkins or the large
gay mushrooms of which we have seen an imitation
one concealing the chimney. There is an enormous
fireplace which is in almost any part of the room
where you care to light it, and across this Wendy

97

98 PETER PAN [act

GAL RUNES. ots LN i he.
has stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she
hangs her washing. There are also various tom-
fool things in the room of no use whatever.
Michael’s basket bed is nailed high up on the wall
as if to protect him from the cat, but there iS NO
indication at present of where the others sleep. At
the back between two of the tree trunks is a grind-
stone, and near it is a lovely hole, the size of a
band-boz, with a gay curtain drawn across so that
you cannot see what is inside. This is Tink’s with-
drawing-room and bed-chamber, and it is just as
well that you cannot see inside, for it ts so ea-
quisite in its decoration and in the personal ap-
parel spread out on the bed that you could scarcely
resist making off with something. Tink is within at
present, as one can guess from a glow showing
through the chinks. It is her own glow, for though
she has a chandelier for the look of the thing, of
course she lights her residence herself. She is prob-
ably wasting valuable time just now wondering
whether to put on the smoky blue or the apple-
blossom.
All the boys except Peter are here, and Wendy
has the head of the table, smiling complacently at
their captivating ways, but doing her best at the
same time to see that they keep the rules about

Iv. | PETER PAN 99

hands-off-the-table, no-two-to-speak-at-once, and so
on. She is wearing romantic woodland garments,
sewn by herself, with red berries in her hair which
go charmingly with her complexion, as she knows;
indeed she searched for red berries the morning
after she reached the island. The boys are in pic-
turesque attire of her contrivance, and if these don’t
always fit well the fault is not hers but the wearers’,
for they constantly put on each other’s things when
they put on anything at all. Michael is in his
cradle on the wall. First Twin is apart on a high
stool and wears a dunce’s cap, another invention of
Wendy’s, but not wholly successful because every-
body wants to be dunce.

_ It is a pretend meal this evening, with nothing
whatever on the table, not a mug, nor a crust, nor a
spoon. They often have these suppers and like
them on occasions as well as the other kind, which
consist chiefly of bread-fruit, tappa rolls, yams,
mammee apples and banana splash, washed down
with calabashes of poe-poe. The pretend meals are
not Wendy’s idea; indeed she was rather startled to
find, on arriving, that Peter knew of no other kind,
and she is not absolutely certain even now that he
does eat the other kind, though no one appears to
do it more heartily. He insists that the pretend

100 PETER PAN [act

meals should be partaken of with gusto, and we see
his band doing their best to obey orders.

wENDY (her fingers to her ears, for their chat-
ter and clatter are deafening). Si-lence! Is your
mug empty, Slightly?

SLIGHTLY (who would not say this if he had a
mug). Not quite empty, thank you.

nips. Mummy, he has not even begun to
drink his poe-poe.

SLIGHTLY (seizing his chance, for this is tale-
bearing). I complain of Nibs!

(souNn holds up his hand.)

wENDY. Well, John?

soun. May I sit in Peter’s chair as he is not
here?

weENDy. In your father’s chair? Certainly
not. é

JoHNn. He is not really our father. He did
not even know how to be a father till I showed
him.

(This is insubordination.)
SECOND Twin. I complain of John!

(The gentle TooTLEs raises his hand.)

1v.] PETER PAN 101

TOOTLES (who has the poorest opinion of him-
self). I don’t suppose Michael would let me be
baby?

MICHAEL. No, I won’t.

TooTLes. May I be dunce?

FIRST TWIN (from his perch). No. It’s
awfully difficult to be dunce.

tTootLtes. As I can’t be anything important
would any of you like to see me do a trick?

oMnEs. No.

TOOTLES (subsiding). I hadn’t really any hope.

(The tale-telling breaks out again.)
nips. Slightly is coughing on the table.
_curty. The twins began with tappa rolls.

SLIGHTLY. I complain of Nibs!

nips. I complain of Slightly! —

WENDY. Oh dear, I am sure I sometimes
think that spinsters are to be envied.

MICHAEL. Wendy, I am too big for a cradle.

WENDY. You are the littlest, and a cradle is
such a nice homely thing to have about a house.
You others can clear away now. (She sits down on
a pumpkin near the fire to her usual evening oc-
cupation, darning.) Every heel with a hole in it!

102 _ PETER PAN [acT

(The boys clear away with dispatch, washing
dishes they don’t have in a non-existent sink
and stowing them in a cupboard that isn’t
there. Instead of sawing the table-leg to-
night they crush it into the ground like a
concertina, and are now ready for play, in
which they indulge hilariously.

A movement of the Indians draws our at-
tention to the scene above. Hitherto, with the
exception of PANTHER, who sits on guard on
top of the little house, they have been hunker-
ing in their blankets, mute but picturesque;
now all rise and prostrate themselves before
the majestic figure of PETER, who approaches
through the forest carrying a gun and game
bag. It is not exactly a gun. He often
wanders away alone with this weapon, and
when he comes back you are never absolutely
certain whether he has had an adventure or
not. He may have forgotten it so com-
pletely that he says nothing about it; and
then when you go out you find the body. On
the other hand he may say a great deal about
it, and yet you never find the body. Some-

1v. | PETER PAN 103

times he comes home with his face scratched,
and tells wenvy, as a thing of no im-
portance, that he got these marks from the
little people for cheeking them at a fairy
wedding, and she listens politely, but she
is never quite sure, you know, indeed the
only one who is sure about anything on the
island is PETER.)

PETER. The Great White Father is glad to
see the Piccaninny braves protecting his wigwam
from the pirates.

TIGER Lity. ‘The Great White Father save
me from pirates. Me his velly nice friend now;
‘no let pirates hurt him.

Braves. Ugh, ugh, wah!

TIGER tity. Tiger Lily has spoken.

PANTHER. Loola, loola! Great Big Little
Panther has spoken.

peter. It is well. The Great White Father

has spoken.
(This has a note of finality about it, with the

implied ‘And now shut up,’ which is never
far from the courteous receptions of well-

104 PETER PAN [act

meaning inferiors by bornleaders of men. He
descends his tree, not unheard by wENDY.)
wenpy. Children, I hear your father’s step.
He likes you to meet him at the door. (PETER
scatters pretend nuts among them and watches
sharply to see that they crunch with relish.)
Peter, you just spoil them, you know!
JoHN (who would be incredulous if he dare).
Any sport, Peter?
PETER. Two tigers and a pirate.
JOHN (boldly). Where are their heads?
PETER (contracting his little brows). In the
bag.
JOHN. (No, he doesn’t say it. He backs away.)
WENDY (peeping into the bag). They are
beauties! (She has learned her lesson.)
First TwIN. Mummy, we all want to dance.
weENDyY. The mother of such an armful dance!
sticHTLy. As it is Saturday night?
(They have long lest count of the days, but
always if they want to do anything special
they say this is Saturday night, and then
they do tt.)
wENDY. Of course it is Saturday night,

———

1] PETER PAN 105

Peter? (He shrugs an indifferent assent.) On
with your nighties first.

(They disappear into various recesses, and
PETER and wENDY with her darning are
left by the fire to dodder parentally. She
emphasises it by humming a verse of
‘John Anderson my Jo,’ which has not the
desired efféct on PETER. She is too loving
to be ignorant that he is not loving enough,
and she hesitates like one who knows the
answer to her question.)

What is wrong, Peter?

PETER (scared). It is only pretend, isn’t it,
*that I am their father?

WENDY (drooping). Oh yes.

(His sigh of relief is without consideration

for her feelings.)

But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.
PETER (determined to get at facts, the only
things that puzzle him). But not really?
wenpDy. Not if you don’t wish it.
peter. I don’t.
WENDY (knowing she ought not to probe but

106 PETER PAN [act

driven to it by something within). What are your
exact feelings for me, Peter?
PETER (in the class-room). Those of a devoted
son, Wendy.
WENDY (turning away). I thought so.
PETER. You are so puzzling. Tiger Lily
is just the same; there is something or other
she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my
mother.
WENDY (with spirit). No, indeed it isn’t.
PETER. Then what is it?
wenpby. It isn’t for a lady to tell.
(The curtain of the fairy chamber opens
slightly, and T1Inx, who has doubtless been
eavesdropping, tinkles a laugh of scorn.)
PETER (badgered). I suppose she means that
she wants to be my mother.
(TINK’s comment is ‘You silly ass.’)
WENDY (who has picked wp some of the fairy
words). I almost agree with her!
(The arrival of the boys in their nightgowns
turns WENDY’s mind to practical matters,
for the children have to be arranged in line
and passed or not passed for cleanliness.

rv. | PETER PAN 107

SLIGHTLY is the worst. At last we see how
they sleep, for in a babel the great bed which
stands on end by day against the wall is
unloosed from custody and lowered to the
floor. Though large, it is a tight fit for
so many boys, and wrnpy has made
a rule that there is to be no turning rownd
until one gives the signal, when all turn at
once.

FIRST TWIN ts the best dancer and per-
forms mightily on the bed and in it and out
of it and over it to an accompaniment of
pillow fights by the less agile; and then there
is a rush at WENDY.)

nips. Now the story you promised to tell us
as soon as we were in bed!
WENDY (severely). As far as I can see you
are not in bed yet.
(They scramble into the bed, and the effect
is as of a boxful of sardines.)
wENDY (drawing up her stool). Well, there

was once a gentleman
curLy. I wish he had been a lady.
nips. I wish he had been a white rat.

108 PETER PAN [act

WENDY. Quiet! There was a lady also.
The gentleman’s name was Mr. Darling and the

lady’s name was Mrs. Darling

soun. I knew them!

MICHAEL (who has been allowed to join the
circle). I think I knew them.

weENbDy. They were married, you know; and
what do you think they had?

nips. White rats?

wenpy. No, they had three descendants.
White rats are descendants also. Almost every-
thing is a descendant. Now these three children
had a faithful nurse called Nana.

MICHAEL (alas). What a funny name!

wEeNpDy. But Mr. Darling—(faltering) or
was it Mrs. Darling?—was angry with her and
chained her up in the yard; so all the children
flew away. They flew away to the Never Land,
where the lost boys are.

curLy. I just thought they did; I don’t
know how it is, but I just thought they did.

TOOTLES. Oh, Wendy, was one of the lost
boys called Tootles?

WENDY. Yes, he was.

Iv. | PETER PAN 109
1 ATR Sees Oe te LE REP Eee << eee ere ee Ty
TOOTLES (dazzled). AmIina story? Nibs,

I am in a story!

PETER (who is by the fire making Pan’s pipes
with his knife, and is determined that wenvy shall
have fair play, however beastly a story he may
think it). <A little less noise there.

WENDY (melting over the beauty of her present
performance, but without any real qualms). Now
I want you to consider the feelings of the un-
happy parents with all their children flown away.
Think, oh think, of the empty beds. (The
heartless ones think of them with glee.)

FIRST TWIN (cheerfully). It’s awfully sad.

WENDY. But our heroine knew that her
mother would always leave the window open for
her progeny to fly back by; so they stayed
away for years and had a lovely time.

(PETER is interested at last.)

FIRST TWIN. Did they ever go back?

WENDY (comfortably). Let us now take a peep
into the future. Years have rolled by, and who
is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting
at London station?

(The tension is unbearable.)

110 PETER PAN [Act

nips. Oh, Wendy, who is she?

wENDY (swelling). Can it be—yes—no—yes,
it is the fair Wendy!

TooTLes. I am glad.

wenDy. Who are the two noble portly
figures accompanying her? Can they be John
and Michael? They are. (Pride of MICHAEL.)
‘See, dear brothers, says Wendy, pointing
upward, ‘there is the window standing open.’
So up they flew to their loving parents, and pen
cannot inscribe the happy scene over which we
draw a veil. (Her triwmph is spoilt by a groan
from PETER and she hurries to him.) Peter, what
isit? (Thinking he is ill, and looking lower than
his chest.) Where is it?

PETER. It isn’t that kind of pain. Wendy,
you are wrong about mothers. I thought like
you about the window, so I stayed away for
moons and moons, and then I flew back, but the
window was barred, for my mother had forgotten
all about me and there was another little boy
sleeping in my bed.

(This is a general damper.)

JOHN. Wendy, let us go back!

Iv. ] PETER PAN 111

wenpy. Are you sure mothers are like that?
PETER. Yes.
wENDy. John, Michael! (She clasps them
to her.)
FIRST TWIN (alarmed). You are not to leave
us, Wendy?
weENDy. I must.
nips. Not to-night?
wenpy. Atonce. Perhaps mother is in half-
mourning by this time! Peter, will you make
the necessary arrangements?
(She asks it in the steely tones women adopt
when they are prepared secretly for opposi-
tion. )
” PETER (coolly). If you wish it.
(He ascends his tree to give the redskins
their instructions. The lost boys gather
threateningly round wENDY.)
cuRLY. We won’t let you go!
wENDY (with one of those inspirations women
have, in an emergency, to make use of some male
who need otherwise have no hope). 'Tootles, I
appeal to you.
rootLes (leaping to his death if necessary).

112 PETER PAN [act

I am just Tootles and nobody minds me, but the
first who does not behave to Wendy I will blood
him severely. (PETER returns.)

PETER (with awful serenity). Wendy, I told
the braves to guide you through the wood as
flying tires you so. Then Tinker Bell will take
you across the sea. (A shrill tinkle from the
boudoir probably means ‘and drop her into tt.’)

nips (fingering the curtain which he is not
allowed to open). 'Tink, you are to get up and
take Wendy ona journey. (Star-eyed) She says
she won’t!

PETER (taking a step toward that chamber).
If you don’t get up, Tink, and dress at once——
She is getting up!

WENDY (quivering now that the time to depart
has come). Dear ones, if you will all come with
me I feel almost sure I can get my father and
mother to adopt you.

(There is joy at this, not that they want
parents, but novelty is their religion.)

niss. But won’t they think us rather a
handful?

WENDY (a swift reckoner). Oh no, it will only

Iv. ] PETER PAN 113

mean having a few beds in the drawing-room ;
they can be hidden behind screens on_ first
Thursdays.

(Everything depends on PETER.)

oMNES. Peter, may we go?

PETER (carelessly through the pipes to which
he is giving a finishing touch). All right.

(They scurry off to dress for the adventure.)

WENDY (insinuatingly). Get your clothes,
Peter.

PETER (skipping about and playing fairy
music on his pipes, the only music he knows). I
am not going with you, Wendy.

*wenpy. Yes, Peter!

PETER. No.

(The lost ones run back gaily, each carry-

ing a stick with a bundle on the end of tt.)
weENDyY. Peter isn’t coming!

(All the faces go blank.)

JOHN (even JOHN). Peter not coming!

TOOTLES (overthrown). Why, Peter?

PETER (his pipes more riotous than ever). 1 just
want always to be a little boy and to have fun.

114 PETER PAN [act

(There is a general fear that they are per-
haps making the mistake of their lives.)
Now then, no fuss, no blubbering. (With dread-
ful cynicism) I hope you will like your mothers!

Are you ready, Tink? Then lead the way.
(TINK darts up any tree, but she is the only
one. The air above is suddenly rent with
shrieks and the clash of steel. Though they
cannot see, the boys know that Hoox and his
crew are upon the Indians. Mouths open
and remain open, all in mute appeal to
PETER. He is the only boy on his feet now,
a sword in his hand, the same he slew
Barbicue with; and in his eye is the lust
of battle.

We can watch the carnage that is invisible
to the children. Hoox has basely broken
the two laws of Indian warfare, which are
that the redskins should attack first, and
that tt should be at dawn. They have known
the pirate whereabouts since, early in the
night, one of sMEE’s fingers crackled. The
brushwood has closed behind their scouts as
silently as the sand on the mole; for hours

PETER PAN 115

they have imitated the lonely call of the
coyote; no stratagem has been overlooked,
but, alas, they have trusted to the pale-faces’
honour to await an attack at dawn, when his
courage is known to be at the lowest ebb.
HOOK falls wpon them pell-mell, and one
cannot withhold a reluctant admiration for
the wit that conceived so subtle a scheme and
the fell genius with which it is carried out.
If the braves would rise quickly they might
stil have time to scalp, but this they are
forbidden to do by the traditions of their
race, for it is written that they must never
express surprise in the presence of the pale-
face. For a brief space they remain re-
cumbent, not a muscle moving, as if the foe
were here by invitation. Thus perish the
flower of the Piccaninnies, though not un-
avenged, for with LEAN wo F fall ALF MASON
and CANARY ROBB, while other pirates to bite
dust arێ BLACK GILMOUR and ALAN HERB,
that same uERB who is still remembered at
Manaos for playing skittles with the mate of
the Switch for each other’s heads. cHay

116

PETER PAN [acr

TURLEY, who laughed with the wrong side of
his mouth (having no other), is tomahawked
by PANTHER, who eventually cuts a way
through the shambles with TIcER LiLy and
a remnant of the tribe.

This onslaught passes and is gone like a
fierce wind. The victors wipe their cutlasses,
and squint, ferret-eyed, at their leader. He
remains, as ever, aloof in spirit and in sub-
stance. He signs to them to descend the
trees, for he is convinced that pan is down
there, and though he has smoked the bees it
is the honey he wants. There is something
im PETER that at all times goads this extra-
ordinary man to frenzy; it is the boy’s
cockiness, which disturbs noox like an
insect. If you have seen a lion in a cage
futilely pursuing a sparrow you will know
what is meant. The pirates try to do their
captain’s bidding, but the apertures prove
to be not wide enough for them; he cannot
even ram them down with a pole. He steals
to the mouth of a tree and listens.)

PETER (prematurely). All is over!

Iv. | PETER PAN 117

WENDY. But who has won?
peter. Hst! If the Indians have won they
will beat the tom-tom; it is always their signal
of victory.
(00K licks his lips at this and signs to
SMEE, who is sitting on it, to hold up the
tom-tom. He beats upon it with his claw,
and listens for results.)
tTootLes. The tom-tom!
PETER (sheathing his sword). An Indian
victory!
(The cheers from below are music to the
black hearts above.)
You are quite safe now, Wendy. Boys, good-
bye. (He reswmes his pipes.)
wenvy. Peter, you will remember about
changing your flannels, won’t you?
PETER. Oh, all right!
wenpy. And this is your medicine.
(She puts something into a shell and leaves
it on a ledge between two of the trees. It
is only water, but she measures it out im
drops.)

pETER. I won’t forget.

118 PETER PAN [act

WENDY. Peter, what are you to me?

PETER (through the pipes). Your son, Wendy.

WENDY. Oh, good-bye!
(The travellers start wpon their journey,
little witting that Hook has issued his silent
orders: a man to the mouth of each tree, and
a row of men between the trees and the little
house. As the children squeeze up they are
plucked from their trees, trussed, thrown like
bales of cotton from one pirate to another,
and so piled up in the little house. The only
one treated differently is wrENpy, whom
HOOK escorts to the house on his arm with
hateful politeness. He signs to his dogs to
be gone, and they depart through the wood,
carrying the little house with its strange
merchandise and singing their ribald song.
The chimney of the little house emits a jet of
smoke fitfully, as if not sure what it ought
to do just now.

HOOK and PETER are now, as it were, alone
on the island. Below, peter is on the bed,
asleep, no weapon near him; above, HooK,
armed to the teeth, is searching noiselessly

v.] PETER PAN 119
os sn agp ni ge nah Re ec

for some tree down which the nastiness of
him can descend. Don’t be too much
alarmed by this; it is precisely the situation
PETER would have chosen; indeed if the
whole thing were pretend—. One of his
arms droops over the edge of the bed, a leg
is arched, and the mouth is not so tightly
closed that we cannot see the little pearls.
He is dreaming, and in his dreams he is
always in pursuit of a boy who was never
here, nor anywhere: the only boy who could
beat him.

HOOK finds the tree. It is the one set apart
for sticHTLy, who being addicted when hot
to the drinking of water has swelled in con-
sequence and surreptitiously scooped his tree
for easier descent and egress. Down this
the pirate wriggles a passage. In the
aperture below his face emerges and goes
green as he glares at the sleeping child.
Does no feeling of compassion disturb his
sombre breast? The man is not wholly
evil: he has a Thesaurus in his cabin, and
is no mean performer on the flute. What

120 PETER PAN [act

really warps him is a presentiment that
he is about to fail. This is not unconnected
with a beatific smile on the face of the sleeper,
whom he cannot reach owing to being stuck
at the foot of the tree. He, however, sees the
medicine shell within easy reach, and to
weNby’s draught he adds from a bottle
five drops of poison distilled when he was
weeping from the red in his eye. The
expression On PETER’S face merely implies
that something heavenly is going on. HOOK
worms his way upwards, and winding his
cloak around him, as if to conceal his person
from the night of which he is the blackest
part, he stalks moodily toward the lagoon.

A dot of light flashes past him and darts
down the nearest tree, looking for PETER,
only for PETER, quite indifferent about the
others when she finds him safe.)

PETER (stirring). Whois that? (tTrnx has to
tell her tale, in one long ungrammatical sentence.)
The redskins were defeated? Wendy and the
boys captured by the pirates! Tl rescue her,
I'll rescue her! (He leaps first at his dagger, and

w.] PETER PAN 121

then at his grindstone, to sharpen it. t1nx alights
near the shell, and rings out a warning cry.) Oh,
that is just my medicine. Poisoned? Who
could have poisoned it? I promised Wendy to
take it, and I will as soon as I have sharpened
my dagger. (TINK, who sees its red colour and
remembers the red in the pirate’s eye, nobly
swallows the draught as pretrr’s hand is reach-
eng for it.) Why, Tink, you have drunk my
medicine! (She flutters strangely about the
room, answering him now in a very thin tinkle.)
It'was poisoned and you drank it to save my life!
Tink, dear Tink, are you dying? (He has never
called her dear Tink before, and for a moment she
is gay; she alights on his shoulder, gives his chin
a loving bite, whispers ‘You silly ass,’ and falls on
her tiny bed. The boudoir, which is lit by her,
flickers ominously. He is on his knees by the
opening.)

Her light is growing faint, and if it goes out,
that means she is dead! Her voice is so low I
can scarcely tell what she is saying. She says—
she says she thinks she could get well again if
children believed in fairies! (He rises and throws

122 PETER PAN [acT Iv.

out his arms he knows not to whom, perhaps to the
boys and girls of whom he is not one.) Do you
believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe!
If you believe, clap your hands! (Many clap,
some don’t, a few hiss. Then perhaps there is a
rush of Nanas to the nurseries to see what on earth
is happening. But tnx is saved.) Oh, thank
you, thank you, thank you! And now to rescue
Wendy!
(Tink ts already as merry and impudent as a
grig, with not a thought for those who have
saved her. PETER ascends his tree as if he
were shot up it. What he is feeling is
‘Hook or me this time!’ He is frightfully
happy. He soon hits the trail, for the
smoke from the little house has lingered
here and there to guide him. He takes
wing.)

ACT V

a ohana? ae

! Pays ee i

mainte ty VES i ava
es wat det i ee

ies ot ens all
— bhatt ee ate wy 7

eo oy ues Ve “0 : = oi eaaehe

ACT V
ScENE 1
THE PIRATE SHIP

The stage directions for the opening of this scene
are as follows:—1 Circuit Amber checked to 80.
Battens, all Amber checked, 3 ship’s lanterns alight,
Arcs: prompt perch 1. Open dark amber flooding
back, O.P. perch open dark amber flooding upper
deck. Arc on tall steps at back of cabin to flood
back cloth. Open dark Amber. Warning for slide.
Plank ready. Call Hook.

In the strange light thus described we see what
is happening on the deck of the Jolly Roger, which
is flying the skull and crossbones and lies low in
the water. There is no need to call Hook, for he
is here already, and indeed there is not a pirate
aboard who would dare to call him. Most of them
are at present carousing in the bowels of the ves-
sel, but on the poop Mullins is visible, in the only
great-coat on the ship, raking with his glass the
monstrous rocks within which the lagoon is cooped.

125

126 PETER PAN [act

moe gt a eS ee
Such a look-out is swpererogatory, for the pirate
craft floats immune in the horror of her name.

From Hook’s cabin at the back Starkey appears
and leans over the bulwark, silently surveying the
sullen waters. He is bare-headed and is perhaps
thinking with bitterness of his hat, which he some-
times sees still drifting past him with the Never
bird sitting on it. The black pirate is asleep on
deck, yet even in his dreams rolling mechanically
out of the way when Hook draws near. The only
sound to-be heard is made by Smee at his sewing-
machine, which lends a touch of domesticity to the
night.

Hook is now leaning against the mast, now
prowling the deck, the double cigar in his mouth.
With Peter surely at last removed from his path
we, who know how vain a tabernacle is man, would
not be surprised to find him bellied out by the winds
of his success, but it is not so; he is still wneasy,
looking long and meaninglessly at familiar objects,
such as the ship’s bell or the Long Tom, like one
who may shortly be a stranger to them. It is as if
Pan’s terrible oath ‘Hook or me this time!’ had
already boarded the ship.

HOOK (communing with his ego) . Howstill the

v. | PETER PAN 127

night is; nothing sounds alive. Now is the hour
when children in their homes are a-bed; their lips
bright-browned with the good-night chocolate,
and their tongues drowsily searching for belated
crumbs housed insecurely on their shining cheeks.
Compare with them the children on this boat
about to walk the plank. Split my infinitives, but
*tis my hour of triumph! (Clinging to this fair
prospect he dances a few jubilant steps, but they
fall below his usual form.) And yet some disky
spirit compels me now to make my dying speech,
lest when dying there may be no time for it. All
mortals envy me, yet better perhaps for Hook to
have had less ambition! O fame, fame, thou
(SMEE,

glittering bauble, what if the very
engrossed in his labours at the sewing-machine,
tears a piece of calico with a rending sound which
makes the Solitary think for a moment that the
untoward has happened to his garments.) No
little children love me. I am told they play at
Peter Pan, and that the strongest always chooses
to be Peter. They would rather be a Twin than
Hook ; they force the baby to be Hook. The baby!
that is where the canker gnaws. (He contemplates

128 PETER PAN [act
eee ee ee

his industrious boatswain.) °”Tis said they find
Smee lovable. But an hour agone I found him
letting the youngest of them try on his spectacles.
Pathetic Smee, the Nonconformist pirate, a
happy smile upon his face because he thinks they
fear him! How can I break it to him that they
think him lovable? No, bi-carbonate of Soda,

no, not even (Another rending of the calico

disturbs him, and he has a private consultation
with STARKEY, who turns him round and evidently
assures him that all is well. The peroration of his
speech is nevertheless for ever lost, as eight bells
strikes and his crew pour forth in bacchanalian
orgy. From the poop he watches their dance till it
frets him beyond bearing.) Quiet, you dogs, or I'll
cast anchor in you! (He descends to a barrel on
which there are playing-cards, and his crew stand
waiting, as ever, like whipped curs.) Are all the
prisoners chained, so that they can’t fly away?

JuKES. Ay, ay, Captain.

HooK. Then hoist them up.

STARKEY (raising the door of the hold). Tum-
ble up, you ungentlemanly lubbers.

(The terrified boys are prodded up and

v.] PETER PAN 129

tossed about the deck. uoox seems to have
forgotten them; he is sitting by the barrel
with his cards.)

HOOK (suddenly). So! Now then, you bullies,
six of you walk the plank to-night, but I have
room for two cabin-boys. Which of you is it to
be? (He returns to his cards.)

TOOTLES (hoping to soothe him by putting the
blame on the only person, vaguely remembered,
who is always willing to act as a buffer). You
see, sir, I don’t think my mother would like me
to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to
be a pirate, Shghtly?

SLIGHTLY (implying that otherwise it would be
a pleasure to him to oblige). I don’t think so.
Twin, would your mother like——

HOOK. Stow this gab. (T'o soun) You boy,
you look as if you had a little pluck in you.
Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?

soun (dazzled by being singled out). When
I was at school I—what do you think, Michael?

MICHAEL (stepping into prominence). What
would you call me if I joined?

HooK. Blackbeard Joe.

1380 PETER PAN [Act

MICHAEL. John, what do you think? ©
JoHN. Stop, should we still be respectful
subjects of King George?
HOOK. You would have to swear ‘Down with
King George.’
JOHN (grandly). Then I refuse!
MICHAEL. And I refuse.
HooK. That seals your doom. Bring up
their mother.
(weNby is driven up from the hold and
thrown to him. She sees at the first glance that
the deck has not been scrubbed for years.)
So, my beauty, you are to see your children
walk the plank.
WENDY (with noble calmness). Are they to die?
HooK. They are. Silence all, for a mother’s
last words to her children.
wENDY. ‘These are my last words. Dear
boys, I feel that I have a message to you from
your real mothers, and it is this, ‘We hope our
sons will die like English gentlemen.’
(The boys go on fire.)
rooTLEs. I am going to do what my mother
hopes. What are you to do, Twin?

v. | PETER PAN 131

First TwIn. What my mother hopes. John,

what are——

HooK. Tie her up! Get the plank ready.
(wENDYy is roped to the mast; but no one
regards her, for all eyes are fixed upon the
plank now protruding from the poop over
the ship’s side. A great change, however,
occurs in the time uoox takes to raise his
claw and point to this deadly engine. No
one is now looking at the plank: for the
tick, tick of the crocodile is heard. Yet tt is
not to bear on the crocodile that all eyes slew
round, it is that they may bear on HOOK.
Otherwise prisoners and captors are equally
inert, like actors in some play who have
found themselves ‘on’ in a scene in which
they are not personally concerned. Even the
iron claw hangs inactive, as if aware that the
crocodile is not coming for it. Affection for
their captain, now cowering from vlew, 18
not what has given HooK his dominance over
the crew, but as the menacing sound draws
nearer they close their eyes respectfully.

There is no crocodile. It is PETER, who

132 PETER PAN [acr

has been circling the pirate ship, ticking as
he flies far more superbly than any clock.
He drops into the water and climbs aboard,
warning the captives with upraised finger
(but still ticking) not for the moment to give
audible expression to their natural admira-
tion. Only one pirate sees him, WHIBBLES
of the eye patch, who comes up from below.
JOHN claps a hand on wHiBBLEs’ mouth to
stifle the groan; four boys hold him to pre-
vent the thud; PETER delivers the blow, and
the carrion is thrown overboard. ‘One!’
says SLIGHTLY, beginning to count.
STARKEY is the first pirate to open his
eyes. The ship seems to him to be precisely
as when he closed them. He cannot interpret
the sparkle that has come into the faces of
the captives, who are cleverly pretending to
be as afraid as ever. He little knows that the
door of the dark cabin has just closed on one
more boy. Indeed it is for Hoox alone he
looks, and he is a little surprised to see him.)
STARKEY (hoarsely). It is gone, Captain!
There is not a sound.

v.] PETER PAN 133

(The tenement that is HooK heaves tumultu-
ously and he is himself again.)
HOOK (now convinced that some fair spirit
watches over him). ‘Then here is to Johnny
Plank—

Avast, belay, the English brig
We took and quickly sank,
And for a warning to the crew

We made them walk the plank!

(As he sings he capers detestably along an
imaginary plank and his copy-cats do
likewise, joining in the chorus.)

Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky cat,

You walks along it so,

Till it goes down and you goes down
To tooral looral lo!

(The brave children try to stem this mon-
strous torrent by breaking into the National
Anthem.)
STARKEY (paling). I don’t like it, messmates!
Hook. Stow that, Starkey. Do you boys
want a touch of the cat before you walk the
plank? (He is more pitiless than ever now that

134 PETER PAN [AcT

he believes he has a charmed life.) Fetch the cat,
Jukes; it is in the cabin.
guxkrs. Ay, ay, sir. (It is one of his common-
est remarks, and is only recorded now because he
never makes another. The stage direction ‘Exit
JUKES’ has in this case a special significance.
But only the children know that some one is awatt-
ing this unfortunate in the cabin, and HOOK
tramples them down as he resumes his ditty:)
Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat
Its tails are nine you know,
And when they’re writ upon your back,
You’re fit to—
(The last words will ever remain a matter of
conjecture, for from the dark cabin comes
a curdling screech which wails through the
ship and dies away. It is followed by a
sound, almost more eerie in the circum-
stances, that can only be likened to the
crowing of a cock.)
HooK. What was that?
SLIGHTLY (solemnly). ‘Two!
(cEcco swings into the cabin, and in a
moment returns, livid.)

v. | PETER PAN 135

HOOK (with an effort). What is the matter
with Bill Jukes, you dog?
cecco. The matter with him is he is dead—
stabbed.
PIRATES. Bill Jukes dead!
crcco. The cabin is as black as a pit, but
there is something terrible in there: the thing
you heard a-crowing.
HOOK (slowly). Cecco, go back and fetch me
out that doodle-doo.
cecco (unstrung). No, Captain, no. (He
supplicates on his knees, but his master advances
on him implacably.)
* yoox (in his most syrupy voice). Did you say
you would go, Cecco?
(cecco goes. All listen. There is one
screech, one crow.)
SLIGHTLY (as if he were a bell tolling). Three!
HOOK. ’Sdeath and oddsfish, who is to bring
me out that doodle-doo?
(No one steps forward.)
STARKEY (injudiciously). Wait till Cecco

comes out.

136 PETER PAN [acr

(The black looks of some others encourage
him.)
Hook. I think I heard you volunteer,
Starkey.
STARKEY (emphatically). No, by thunder!
HOOK (im that syrupy voice which might be
more engaging when accompanied by his flute).
My hook thinks you did. I wonder if it
would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour
the hook?
starkEY. I'll swing before I go in there.
HOOK (gleaming). Is it mutiny? Starkey is
ringleader. Shake hands, Starkey.
(sTaRKEY recoils from the claw. It follows
him till he leaps overboard.)
Did any other gentleman say mutiny?
(They indicate that they did not even know
the late STARKEY.)
SLIGHTLY. Four!
Hook. I will bring out that doodle-doo
myself.
(He raises a blunderbuss but casts it from
him with a menacing gesture which means
that he has more faith in the claw. With a

v.] PETER PAN 137

lighted lantern in his hand he enters the
cabin. Not a sound is to be heard now on
the ship, unless it be sticHtLy wetting his
lips to say ‘Five.’ Hoox staggers out.)

HOOK (unsteadily). Something blew out the
light.

MULLINS (with dark meaning). Some—thing?

NOoODLER. What of Cecco?

HOOK. He is as dead as Jukes.

(They are superstitious like all sailors, and
MULLINS has planted a dire conception m
their minds.)

cooxson. ‘They do say as the surest sign a
ship’s accurst is when there is one aboard more
than can be accounted for.

NOoDLER. I’ve heard he allus boards the
pirate craft at last. (With dreadful significance)
Has he a tail, Captain?

mMuLuINS. They say that when he comes it is
in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard.

cookson (clinching it). Has he a_ hook,
Captain?

(Knives and pistols come to hand, and there
is a general cry ‘The ship is doomed!’ But

138 PETER PAN [act

it is not his dogs that can frighten sas
HOOK. Hearing something like a cheer
from the boys he wheels round, and his face
brings them to their knees.)

HOOK. So you like it, do you! By Caius and
Balbus, bullies, here is a notion: open the cabin
door and drive them in. Let them fight the
doodle-doo for their lives. If they kill him we
are so much the better; if he kills them we are
none the worse.

(This masterly stroke restores their con-
fidence; and the boys, affecting fear, are
driven into the cabin. Desperadoes though
the pirates are, some of them have been
boys themselves, and all turn their backs to
the cabin and listen, with arms outstretched
to it as if to ward off the horrors that are
being enacted there.

Relieved by peter of their manacles, and
armed with such weapons as they can lay their
hands on, the boys steal out softly as snow-
flakes, and under their captain’s hushed order
find hiding-places on the poop. He releases
WENDY; and now it would be easy for them

v.] PETER PAN 139
eee Pe ee

all to fly away, but it is to be Hoox or him
this time. He signs to her to join the others,
and with awful grimness. folding her cloak
around him, the hood over his head, he takes
her place by the mast, and crows.)

MULLINS. The doodle-doo has killed them all!

SEVERAL. The ship’s bewitched.

(They are snapping at Hoox again.)

HOOK. I’ve thought it out, lads; there is a
Jonah aboard.

SEVERAL (advancing upon him). Ay, a man
with a hook.

Uf he were to withdraw one step their
knives would be in him, but he does not
flinch.)

HOOK (temporising). No, lads, no, it is the
girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi’ a
woman aboard. We’ll right the ship when she
has gone.

MULLINS (lowering his cutlass). It’s worth
trying.

HOOK. Throw the girl overboard.

MULLINS (jeering). There is none can save
you now, missy.

140 PETER PAN [act

PETER. There is one.

mMuLLINS. Who is that?

PETER (casting off the cloak). Peter Pan, the

avenger !

(He continues standing there to let the effect
sink in.)

HOOK (throwing out a suggestion). Cleave him

to the brisket.

(But he has a sinking that this boy has no
brisket.)

NOODLER. The ship’s accurst!

PETER. Down, boys, and at them!
(The boys leap from their concealment and
the clash of arms resounds through the
vessel. Man to man the pirates are the
stronger, but they are unnerved by the
suddenness of the onslaught and they scatter,
thus enabling their opponents to hunt in
couples and choose their quarry. Some are
hurled into the lagoon; others are dragged
from dark recesses. There is no boy whose
weapon is not reeking save SLIGHTLY, who
runs about with a lantern, counting, ever
counting.)

v.] PETER PAN 141

WENDY (meeting MICHAEL in a moment’s lull).
Oh, Michael, stay with me, protect me!

MICHAEL (reeling). Wendy, Dve killed a
pirate!

WENDY. It’s awful, awful.

MICHAEL. No, it isn’t, I like it, I like it.

(He casts himself into the group of boys who
are encircling HooK. Again and again
they close upon him and again and again
he hews a clear space.)

HOOK. Back, back, you mice. It’s Hook;
do you like him? (He lifts up micuax. with his
claw and uses him as a buckler. A terrible voice
breaks in.)

PETER. Put up your swords, boys. This man
is mine.

(n00K shakes MICHAEL off his claw as if he
were a drop of water, and these two an-
tagonists face each other for their final bout.
They measure swords at arms’ length, make
a sweeping motion with them, and bringing
the points to the deck rest their hands wpon
the hilts.)

142 PETER PAN [ AcT

HOOK (with curling lip). So, Pan, this is all
your doing!
peTER. Ay, Jas Hook, it is all my doing.
Hook. Proud and insolent youth, prepare to
meet thy doom.
perer. Dark and sinister man, have at thee.
(Some say that he had to ask TooTLES
whether the word was sinister or canister.
HOOK or PETER this time! They fall to
without another word. PETER is @ rare
swordsman, and parries with dazzling
rapidity, sometimes before the other can
make his stroke. HooK, if not quite so
nimble in wrist play, has the advantage of a
yard or two in reach, but though they close
he cannot give the quietus with his claw,
which seems to find nothing to tear at. He
does not, especially im the most heated
moments, quite see PETER, who to his eyes,
now blurred or opened clearly for the first
tome, is less like a boy than a mote of dust
dancing in the sun. By some impalpable
stroke HooK’s sword is whipped from his
grasp, and when he stoops to raise it a little

oo PETER PAN 143
eee ae ee ee ee
foot is on its blade. There is no deep gash

on HOOK, but he is suffering torment as from
mnumerable jags.)

Boys (exulting). Now, Peter, now!
(PETER raises the sword by its blade, and
with an inclination of the head that is
perhaps slightly overdone, presents the hilt
to his enemy.)

HOOK. *Tis some fiend fighting me! Pan,

who and what art thou?

(The children listen eagerly for the answer,
none quite so eagerly as WENDY.)

PETER (at a venture). I’m youth, ’m joy,

‘cl a little bird that has broken out of the egg.

HOOK. ‘To ’t again!
(He has now a damp feeling that this boy is
the weapon which is to strike him from the
lists of man; but the grandeur of his mind
still holds and, true to the traditions of his
flag, he fights on like a human flail. verer
flutters round and through and over these
gyrations as if the wind of them blew him
out of the danger zone, and again and again
he darts in and jags.)

144 PETER PAN [acr

HOOK (stung to madness). Ill fire the powder
magazine. (He disappears they know not where.)

CHILDREN. Peter, save us in

(vETER, alas, goes the wrong way and HOOK
returns.)

HOOK (sitting on the hold with gloomy satis-
faction). In two minutes the ship will be blown
to pieces.

(They cast themselves before him in en-
treaty.)

CHILDREN. Mercy, mercy!

HOOK. Back, you pewling spawn. I'll show
you now the road to dusty death. A holocaust
of children, there is something grand in the
idea!

(PETER appears with the smoking bomb in
his hand and tosses tt overboard. HooK has
not really had much hope, and he rushes at
his other persecutors with his head down
like some exasperated bull in the ring; but
with banteiing cries they easily elude him
by flying among the rigging.

Where is peTER? The incredible boy has
apparently forgotten the recent doings, and

PETER PAN 145

as sitting on a barrel playing upon his pipes.
This may surprise others but does not
surprise HOOK. Lifting a blunderbuss he
strikes forlornly not at the boy but at the
barrel, which is hurled across the deck.
PETER remains sitting in the air still play-
ing upon his pipes. At this sight the great
heart of “Hoox breaks. That not wholly
unheroic figure climbs the bulwarks mur-
muring ‘Floreat Etona,’ and prostrates
himself into the water, where the crocodile
is waiting for him open-mouthed. HooxK
knows the purpose of this yawning cavity,
but after what he has gone through he enters
at like one greeting a friend.

The curtain rises to show PETER a very
Napoleon on his ship. It must not rise
agai lest we see him on the poop in HooK’s
hat and cigars, and with a small iron claw.)

146 PETER PAN [act

ScENE 2

THE NURSERY AND THE TREE-TOPS

The old nursery appears again with everything just
as it was at the beginning of the play, except that
the kennel has gone and that the window is stand-
ing open. So Peter was wrong about mothers; in-
deed there is no subject on which he is so likely to
be wrong.

Mrs. Darling is asleep on a chair near the win-
dow, her eyes tired with searching the heavens.
Nana is stretched out listless on the floor. She is
the cynical one, and though custom has made her
hang the children’s night things on the fire-guard
for an airing, she surveys them not hopefully but
with some self-contempt.

MRS. DARLING (starting wp as if we had whis-
pered to her that her brats are coming back).
Wendy, John, Michael! (nana lifts a sym-
pathetic paw to the poor soul’s lap.) I see you
have put their night things out again, Nana! It
touches my heart to watch you do that night
after night. But they will never come back.

v.] PETER PAN 147

(In trouble the difference of station can be
completely ignored, and it is not strange to
see these two using the same handkerchief.
Enter i1za, who in the gentleness with which
the house has been run of late is perhaps a
little more masterful than of yore.)
uiza (feeling herself degraded by the an-
nouncement). Nana’s dinner is served.
(wana, who quite understands what are
Liza’s feelings, departs for the dining-room
with our exasperating leisureliness, instead
of running, as we would all do if we
followed our instincts.)
aiza. To think I have a master as have
changed places with his dog!
MRS. DARLING (gently). Out of remorse, Liza.
za (surely exaggerating). I am a married
woman myself. I don’t think it’s respectable to
go to his office in a kennel, with the street boys
running alongside cheering. (Even this does not
rouse her mistress, which may have been the hon-
ourable intention.) There, that is the cab fetch-
ing him back! (Amid interested cheers from the
street the kennel is conveyed to its old place by a

148 PETER PAN [act

cabby and friend, and mr. DARLING scrambles out
of it in his office clothes.)

MR. DARLING (giving her his hat loftily). If
you will be so good, Liza. (The cheering is
resumed.) It is very gratifying!

Liza (contemptuous). Lot of little boys.

MR. DARLING (with the new sweetness of one
who has sworn never to lose his temper again).
‘There were several adults to-day.

(She goes off scornfully with the hat and the
two men, but he has not a word of reproach
for her. It ought to melt us when we see
how humbly grateful he is for a kiss from
his wife, so much more than he feels he
deserves. One may think he is wrong to
exchange into the kennel, but sorrow has
taught him that he is the kind of man who
whatever he does contritely he must do to
excess; otherwise he soon abandons doing it.)

MRS. DARLING (who has known this for quite a
long time). What sort of a day have you had,
George?

(He is sitting on the floor by the kennel.)

MR. DARLING. ‘There were never less than a

vd PETER PAN 149

hundred running round the cab cheering, and
when we passed the Stock Exchange the
members came out and waved.
(He is exultant but uncertain of himself, and
with a word she could dispirit him utterly.)

MRS. DARLING (bravely). I am so proud,
George.

MR. DARLING (commendation from the dearest
quarter ever going to his head). I have been put
on a picture postcard, dear.

MRS. DARLING (nobly). Never!

MR. DARLING (thoughtlessly). Ah, Mary, we
should not be such celebrities if the children
hadn’t flown away.

MRS. DARLING (startled). George, you are sure
you are not enjoying it?

MR. DARLING (anaiously). Enjoying it! See
my punishment: living in a kennel.

MRS. DARLING. Forgive me, dear one.

MR. DARLING. It is I who need forgiveness,
always I, never you. And now I feel drowsy.
(He retires into the kennel.) Won't you play me
to sleep on the nursery piano? And shut that
window, Mary dearest; I feel a draught.

150 PETER PAN [ac

MRS. DARLING. Oh, George, never ask me to.
do that. The window must always be left open
for them, always, always.

(She goes into the day nursery, from which
we presently hear her playing the sad
song of Margaret. She little knows that
her last remark has been overheard by a
boy crouching at the window. He steals
imto the room accompanied by a ball of
light.)

PETER. Tink, where are you? Quick, close
the window. (Jt closes.) Bar it. (The bar
slams down.) Now when Wendy comes she will
think her mother has barred her out, and she
will have to come back to me! (TINKER BELL
sulks.) Now, Tink, you and I must go out by
the door. (Doors, however, are confusing things to
those who are used to windows, and he is puszled
when he finds that this one does not open on to the
firmament. He tries the other, and sees the piano
player.) Itis Wendy’s mother! (Trxx pops on to
his shoulder and they peep together.) She is a
pretty lady, but not so pretty as my mother.
(This ts a pure guess.) She is making the box

v.] PETER PAN 151

say ‘Come home, Wendy.’ You will never see
Wendy again, lady, for the window is barred! (He
flutters about the room joyously like a bird, but
has to return to that door.) She has laid her head
down on the box. There are two wet things
sitting on her eyes. As soon as they go away
another two come and sit on her eyes. (She ts
heard moaning ‘Wendy, Wendy, Wendy.’) She
wants me to unbar the window. I won’t! She
is awfully fond of Wendy. I am fond of her
too.. We can’t both have her, lady! (A funny
feeling comes over him.) Come on, Tink; we
don’t want any silly mothers.
. (He opens the window and they fly out.

It is thus that the truants find entrance
easy when they alight on the sill, soHN to
his credit having the tired micuaEL on his
shoulders. They have nothing else to their
credit; no compunction for what they have
done, not the tiniest fear that any just person
may be awaiting them with a stick. The
youngest is in a daze, but the two others are
shining virtuously like holy people who are
about to give two other people a treat.)

152 PETER PAN [act

MICHAEL (looking about him). I think I have
been here before.

Joun. It’s your home, you stupid.

wENDY. There is your old bed, Michael.

MICHAEL. I had nearly forgotten.

JOHN. I say, the kennel!

weNDy. Perhaps Nana is in it.

JOHN (peering). There is a man asleep in it.

WENDY (remembering him by the bald patch).
It’s father!

JOHN. So it is!

MICHAEL. Let me see father. (Disappointed)
He is not as big as the pirate I killed.

JOHN (perplexed). Wendy, surely father
didn’t use to sleep in the kennel?

WENDY (with misgivings). Perhaps we don’t
remember the old life as well as we thought we
did.

JOHN (chilled). It is very careless of mother
not to be here when we come back.

(The piano is heard again.)

wENDY. H’sh! (She goes to the door and
peeps.) ‘That is her playing! (They all have a
peep.)

v.] PETER PAN 158

MICHAEL. Who is that lady?

JoHN. H’sh! It’s mother.

MICHAEL. Then are you not really our mother,
Wendy?

WENDY (with conviction). Oh dear, it is quite
time to be back!

JOHN. Let us creep in and put our hands over
her eyes.

WENDY (more considerate). No, let us break
it to her gently.

(She slips between the sheets of her bed;
and the others, seeing the idea at once, get
into their beds. Then when the music stops
they cover their heads. There are now
three distinct bumps in the beds. mrs.
DARLING sees the bumps as soon as she
comes in, but she does not believe she sees
them.)

MRS. DARLING. I see them in their beds so
often in my dreams that I seem still to see
them when I am awake! T’ll not look again.
(She sits down and turns away her face from
the bumps, though of course they are still re-
flected in her mind.) So often their silver voices

154 PETER PAN [act

call me, my little children whom I'll see no
more.
(Silver voices is a good one, especially about
JoHN; but the heads pop up.)
WENDY (perhaps rather silvery). Mother!
MRS. DARLING (without moving). That is
Wendy.
JOHN (quite gruff). Mother!
MRS. DARLING. Now it is John.
MICHAEL (no better than a squeak). Mother!
MRS. DARLING. Now Michael. And when
they call I stretch out my arms to them, but
they never come, they never come!
(This time, however, they come, and there is
joy once more in the Darling household.
The little boy who is crouching at the
window sees the joke of the bumps in the
beds, but cannot understand what all the
rest of the fuss is about.

The scene changes from the inside of the
house to the outside, and we see mr.
DARLING romping in at the door, with the
lost boys hanging gaily to his coat-tails.

PETER PAN 155

So we may conclude that wenvy has told
them to wait outside until she explains
the situation to her mother, who has then sent
MR. DARLING down to tell them that they are
adopted. Of course they could have flown
in by the window like a covey of birds, but
they think it better fun to enter by a door.
There is a moment’s trouble about sLicHTLY,
who somehow gets shut out. Fortunately
Liza finds him.)

iiza. What is the matter, boy?

sLicHTLY. They have all got a mother except

me.

_ uza (starting back). Is your name Slightly?

SLIGHTLY. Yes’m.

uiza. Then I am your mother.

sLiGHTLY. How do you know?

iz (the good-natured creature). I feel it in

my bones.

(They go into the house and there is none

happier now than suicutTiy, unless it be
NANA as she passes with the vmportance of a

nurse who will never have another day off.
weEnpy looks out at the nursery window and

156 PETER PAN [act

sees a friend below, who is hovering in

the air knocking off tall hats with his feet.

The wearers don’t see him. They are too

old. You can’t see PETER tf you are old,

They think he is a draught at the corner.)
wENDY. Peter!

PETER (looking up casually). Hullo, Wendy.
(She flies down to him, to the horror of her
mother, who rushes to the window.)

weEeNDY (making a last attempt). You don’t

feel you would like to say anything to my par-
ents, Peter, about a very sweet subject?

PETER. No, Wendy.

wenpby. About me, Peter?

PETER. No. (He gets out his pipes, which
she knows is a very bad sign. She appeals
with her arms to MRS. DARLING, who is prob-
ably thinking that these children will all
need to be tied to their beds at night.)

MRS. DARLING (from the window). Peter,

where are you? Let me adopt you too.
(She is the loveliest age for a woman, but
too old to see prTER clearly.)

PETER. Would you send me to school?

eal PETER PAN 157

MRS. DARLING (obligingly). Yes.

PETER. And then to an office?

MRS. DARLING. I suppose so.

PETER. Soon I should be a man?

MRS. DARLING. Very soon.

PETER (passionately). I don’t want to go to
school and learn solemn things. No one is going
to catch me, lady, and make me a man. I want
always to be a little boy and to have fun.

(So perhaps he thinks, but it is only his
greatest pretend.)

MRS. DARLING (shivering every time WENDY
pursues him in the air). Where are you to live,
Peter?

PETER. In the house we built for Wendy.
The fairies are to put it high up among the tree-
tops where they sleep at night.

WENDY (rapturously). 'To think of it!

MRS. DARLING. I thought all the fairies were
dead.

wENDyY (almost reprovingly). No indeed!
Their mothers drop the babies into the Never
birds’ nests, all mixed up with the eggs, and the
mauve fairies are boys and the white ones are

158 PETER PAN [act

girls, and there are some colours who don’t
know what they are. The row the children
and the birds make at bath time is positively
deafening.

PETER. I throw things at them.

wENDy. You will be rather lonely in the
evenings, Peter.

PETER. I shall have Tink.

WENDY (flying up to the window). Mother,
may I go?

MRS. DARLING (gripping her for ever). Cer-
tainly not. I have got you home again, and I
mean to keep you.

wrENDy. But he does so need a mother.

MRS. DARLING. So do you, my love.

PETER. Oh, all right.

MRS. DARLING (magnanimously). But, Peter,
I shall let her go to you once a year for a week
to do your spring cleaning.

(wENDy revels in this, but PETER, who-has
no notion what a spring cleaning is, waves
a rather careless thanks.)

MRS. DARLING. Say good-night, Wendy.

v. | PETER PAN 159

weNnpDy. I couldn’t go down just for a
minute?
MRS. DARLING. No.
wENDyY. Good-night, Peter!
PETER. Good-night, Wendy!
wENDY. Peter, you won’t forget me, will you,
before spring-cleaning time comes?
(There is no answer, for he is already soar-
ing high. For a moment after he is gone
we still hear the pipes. MRS. DARLING
closes and bars the window.)

We are dreaming now of the Never Land a year
later. It is bed-time on the island, and the blind
goes up to the whispers of the lovely Never music.
The blue haze that makes the wood below magical
by day comes up to the tree-tops to sleep, and
through it we see numberless nests all lit up, fairies
and birds quarrelling for possession, others flying
around just for the fun of the thing and perhaps
making bets about where the little house will ap-
pear to-night. It always comes and snuggles on
some tree-top, but you can never be sure which;
here it is again, you see John’s hat first as up comes
the house so softly that it knocks some gossips off

160 PETER PAN [act

their perch. When it has settled comfortably it
lights up, and out come Peter and Wendy.

Wendy looks a little older, but Peter is just the
same. She is cloaked for a journey, and a sad
confession must be made about her; she flies so
badly now that she has to use a broomstick.

WENDY (who knows better this time than to be
demonstrative at partings). Well, good-bye,
Peter ; and remember not to bite your nails.

PETER. Good-bye, Wendy.

weNDy. I'll tell mother all about the spring
cleaning and the house.

PETER (who sometimes forgets that she has
been here before). You do like the house?

WENDY. Of course it is small. But most
people of our size wouldn’t have a house at all.
(She should not have mentioned size, for he has
already expressed displeasure at her growth.
Another thing, one he has scarcely noticed,
though it disturbs her, is that she does not see
him quite so clearly now as she used to do.)
When you come for me next year, Peter—you
will come, won’t you?

v.] PETER PAN 161

PETER. Yes. (Gloating) To hear stories
about me! 3

weENDY. It is so queer that the stories you
like best should be the ones about yourself.

PETER (touchy). Well, then?

weENDY. Fancy your forgetting the lost boys.
and even Captain Hook!

PETER. Well, then?

wENpDy. I haven’t seen Tink this time.

PETER. Who?

wENDy. Oh dear! I suppose it is because
you have so many adventures.

PETER (relieved). *Course it is.

_wenpy. If another little girl—if one younger
than I am (She can’t go on.) Oh, Peter,
how I wish I could take you up and squdge you!
(He draws back.) Yes, I know. (She gets
astride her broomstick.) Home! (Jt carrtes
her from him over the tree-tops.

In a sort of way he understands what she
means by ‘Yes, I know,’ but in most sorts
of ways he doesn’t. It has something to do
with the riddle of his being. If he could get
the hang of the thing his cry might become

162 PETER PAN [acT v.

‘To live would be an awfully big adven-
ture!’ but he can never quite get the hang
of it, and so no one is as gay as he. With
rapturous face he produces his pipes, and
the Never birds and the fairies gather
closer till the roof of the little house is so
thick with his admirers that some of them
fall down the chimney. He plays on and on
till we wake up.)

The End

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